In a significant strategic reversal, OpenAI announced on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, the shutdown of its standalone social media application, Sora. The move marks the end of a controversial six-month experiment to build an AI-exclusive social network powered by its advanced Sora 2 video generation model.
The app, which launched as an invite-only platform in September 2025, failed to sustain user interest after an initial surge. According to data from Appfigures, Sora peaked in November 2025 with approximately 3.3 million downloads but saw monthly downloads plummet to around 1.1 million by February 2026. Over its lifetime, the app generated an estimated $2.1 million in revenue from in-app purchases for video generation credits.
The platform faced persistent ethical and moderation challenges. Its flagship feature, which allowed users to create personalized AI avatars (initially called "cameos"), sparked controversy and a trademark lawsuit from the celebrity platform Cameo, forcing a rebrand to "characters." More critically, users easily circumvented guardrails, generating unauthorized deepfakes of public figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robin Williams.
The shutdown also collapses a landmark tentative deal with The Walt Disney Company. In early 2026, Disney had entered into a $1 billion investment and licensing agreement that would have allowed Sora to legally generate content featuring Disney-owned characters. A Disney spokeswoman confirmed the deal will not move forward, though no funds were exchanged prior to termination.
Internally, CEO Sam Altman informed staff that the company is winding down all products using video models, including the Sora developer API and its video functionality within ChatGPT. The Sora team will reportedly shift focus to longer-term projects like robotics as OpenAI redirects its strategy toward enterprise and individual productivity tools.
The closure underscores the difficulty of building a sustainable social network around purely synthetic content, highlighting issues with user retention, ethical deployment of deepfake technology, and high computational costs. OpenAI will continue to offer the underlying Sora 2 model through its paid ChatGPT Plus subscription, signaling a pivot from a standalone social product to an integrated tool.
