Ahead of its planned IPO, Sora became a liability for OpenAI, The Wall Street Journal reports.
When OpenAI announced it was sunsetting Sora last week, it didn’t go into too much detail, tweeting only that it was “saying goodbye” to the video-generation app.
Its PR team later issued a statement to note that OpenAI faced growing compute needs and would shift the Sora research team to “world simulation research to advance robotics that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks.”
As The Wall Street Journal reports, “Sora had quietly turned into a liability for OpenAI in the months after its release, particularly as the startup tightened its focus ahead of a looming IPO.”
The company’s bread and butter are its AI models, and OpenAI reportedly needed more resources (chips for its data centers) for its next-gen model. Going forward, it will focus on a “superapp” that can handle more work-focused tasks, as we’ve seen from Claude and Gemini. This approach may also explain why the company halted ChatGPT’s adult mode and Instant Checkout feature.
“This disciplined focus on where we apply that compute allows us to grow, innovate faster, and deliver more efficiently to enterprises and developers,” OpenAI tells the WSJ.
The week after its September launch, Sora was at the top of the App Store charts and generated quite a buzz on social media. The app was downloaded 4.8 million times in October and 6.1 million times in November. The number, however, dropped to just 1.1 million last month, but still cost OpenAI $1 million a day.
OpenAI, meanwhile, has yet to confirm when the app will shut down. “We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work,” it said last week.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025. alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
