- Primary Subject: Additional Info on OpenAI’s Sora Shutdown
- Key Update: A few additional details reveal what led up to the shutdown of OpenAI's Sora.
- Status: Reported
- Last Verified: March 30, 2026
- Quick Answer: More details on OpenAI's Sora reveal that the tool was not profitable, making it clear why it was shut down.
Just a few days ago, OpenAI pulled the plug on its AI video-generator tool Sora, an unexpected move at the time, given that the company had a $1 billion contract in place with Disney to produce content with the entertainment giant using its legendary characters.
A new report from the Wall Street Journal has shed some light on what led to this decision. The AI-slop generator was allegedly losing $1M per day, making it far from profitable. The user base also wasn't in a positive state, as the tool had dropped to fewer than 500k users, down from its all-time peak of over 1 million.
It appears the Sora team won't be laid off, and the company is shifting its employees' focus to robotics as a long-term bet.
Regarding the aforementioned contract, the report mentions that Walt Disney executives were made aware of the situation less than an hour before the shutdown was announced to the public.
Disney now looks to be searching for another AI partnership, as the report suggests they are in talks with "a dozen companies" to implement AI.
The newly appointed CEO, Josh D'Amaro, previously expressed that "at Disney, creativity is always led by people, that will always be the case."
"Our goal with AI is to empower human creativity and not replace it. We want to give artists and filmmakers and designers better tools so that they can focus on what they do best," he added.
From these comments alone, we expect the company to look for a different type of AI partnership this time and not just letting another company create AI-slop videos using legacy characters.
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