OpenAI shuts off Sora videos this week

OpenAI is in the process of shutting down its video model Sora entirely. The company announced the plan in March, and now the final phase is coming: on September 24, access to Sora through the API closes. The API is the technical route that other companies and developers have used to build Sora into their own apps and services.

Sora was OpenAI's attempt to create a video model that could compete with Google's Veo and Chinese models such as Kling. It was launched as an app where you could generate short videos and share them in a kind of social feed. But according to media reports, the number of active users fell from about one million to fewer than 500,000, while it cost OpenAI about a million dollars a day to keep the service running, because video generation uses far more computing power than, for example, text.

The app and website themselves already closed in April. Now it is the developers' turn: after September 24, you can no longer send requests to Sora through the API, and users' data will be permanently deleted. OpenAI urges everyone who has made videos with Sora to download their content before the deadline expires.

For Danish companies that have used the Sora model as part of their own products, this means they need to have found another solution by Tuesday this week. The most obvious alternatives right now are Google's Veo, the Chinese Kling or Runway, all of which offer similar technology through their own tools.

The decision is generally seen as a sign that OpenAI would rather spend its computing power on the chatbot ChatGPT and on tools for businesses and programmers than on expensive video generation with uncertain demand. Sora continues, however, as a research project at OpenAI, which is now more focused on so-called world models than on finished video products for ordinary users.

What this means for you

If you or your company have used Sora through the API, you need to act now: access closes today, and your data will disappear permanently. Download your videos right away if you want to keep them. If you still need to make AI video, you can look at alternatives such as Google's Veo, Kling or Runway. If you just use ChatGPT in everyday life, it does not affect you.