OpenAI pulls Sora video app over deepfake concerns

OpenAI has shut down Sora, its artificial intelligence video generation app, just months after launching it to the public, as concerns over deepfakes led to its abrupt end.

"We're saying goodbye to the Sora app," the company posted on its official X account on Tuesday, adding that it would share more on how users can preserve content they had already created.

Sora launched in September as OpenAI's bid to tap into the short-form video market dominated by platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. The app recorded 1 million downloads in its first five days and was still attracting around 600,000 downloads per month before its closure.

Despite that traction, it quickly drew criticism from advocacy groups, academics and public figures over its potential to generate realistic deepfakes and what critics called "AI slop", which means low-quality, mass-produced AI content.

OpenAI was forced to act against AI-generated videos featuring public figures, including Michael Jackson and Martin Luther King Jr., following pressure from estates and an actors' union.

The decision is part of a broader shift at the company, which is now redirecting resources towards productivity tools for enterprise clients and longer-term projects such as robotics.

Teams previously working on video are being moved to those areas. The move also affects video features within ChatGPT and the developer version of Sora.

The closure has also ended a high-profile partnership with The Walt Disney Company.

Announced in December, the three-year deal would have given users access to more than 200 characters from franchises including Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, alongside a reported one-billion-dollar equity investment in OpenAI.

However, the agreement was never formally closed, and no money changed hands. Disney said it respected OpenAI's decision, though it emerged the studio had not been warned, its teams were still working with OpenAI on a Sora-linked project the evening before the announcement.