It’s finally happened: OpenAI just pulled the plug on Sora, its AI video creation tool. First introduced in 2024, OpenAI presented the AI video generation app as the future of film and cinema, even signing a high-profile $1 billion licensing deal with Disney to bring its characters to the platform.
Now, less than two years later, OpenAI is consigning Sora to the AI slop-heap, helping us say goodbye to some of the utter dross the tool helped create, and freeing Disney from its deal.
I’m sure, like many, I’m not alone in seeing no downside to OpenAI’s decision. I’d even go so far as to call it a victory for the internet on many levels, removing one of the most pointless AI-driven slop machines we’ve seen since the AI boom. But before we count our AI-generated chickens before they hatch, there is a reminder that, as we’ve seen before, OpenAI will be back with something different — that could be even worse.
Related
I Tried Recreating My Real-Life Videos With Sora: Here’s How It Went
Real life has context. Sora has vibes.
OpenAI pulls Sora, and not before too long
Your Disney characters are safe now
OpenAI officially announced Sora’s closure on Tuesday, March 24, in an abrupt cancellation that caught many working with and on the tool by surprise. Reuters reports that Disney and OpenAI teams working on the tool had concluded a meeting minutes before the announcement went live, catching them all by surprise, with one anonymous person familiar with the situation saying, “It was a big rug pull.”
Reports of rug pull seem likely. Just two days ago, OpenAI released official guidance on using Sora, and the app’s official social accounts have been full of posts, commentary, and, let’s face it, slop, as usual. In that, both OpenAI employees and Disney have been blindsided by the announcement.
The official Sora X account confirmed the closure in a post later on Tuesday.
As you’d expect, the response is mixed, with some folks angry that their favorite AI video generation tool is no more and others praising the closure as a step in the right direction toward preserving real, human-made content.
Judging by the responses to the Sora account’s announcement, it really is love it or hate it when it comes to the removal.
OpenAI hasn’t given an official reason for the closure as yet. However, many believe that it’s a step for OpenAI towards those areas that make real money, such as coding tools and corporate customers. A November 2025 Forbes report suggested Sora was burning through more than $15 million per day, and while that figure was never verified, the tool is certainly contributing to OpenAI’s enormous budget deficits.
The internet thinks the AI slop bubble is popping
I’m hopeful but not sure
Danny Maiorca/MakeUseOfCredit: Danny Maiorca/MakeUseOf
The creative community has spent the better part of two years watching AI-generated content flood every corner of the internet. From reels to shorts to clips, every corner is plagued by AI slop, which makes sense why the internet is celebrating this moment. Users have taken to X to express their feelings, with one calling it a relief and saying this should now bring the focus back to high-quality human storytelling and real creativity.
Over on Reddit, the reaction is much the same, with users calling Sora’s run shorter than expected, and another bluntly stating that “no one ever needed this slop generator.” The consensus seems to be that the writing was on the wall for a while. Sora had no sticky users, and often people would create something, say “oh cool,” and never come back.
There was no reward in it, and the platform struggled to prevent the creation of non-consensual imagery and realistic misinformation while also being incredibly costly.
Related
A ChatGPT Social Network Is an Idea We Can All Do Without
The world doesn’t need another social network, even if it has a great image generator.
Slop Wars: The saga continues
Sora is just one of many AI slop factories. Its closure doesn’t mean the entire AI push will hit a wall. OpenAI is already shifting focus to its long-rumored “SuperApp” that’s likely to bring all of its capabilities under one roof, and potentially be the all-in-one app of Elon Musk’s dreams.
That said, the AI-generated content problem didn’t start with Sora, and it isn’t leaving with it either. ChatGPT’s image generation is still very much alive, ByteDance’s Seedance is building momentum, and there are plenty of other tools ready to fill whatever AI-slop-filled gap Sora leaves behind. But all of this doesn’t change the fact that the appetite for AI-generated content just lost one of its more prominent dishes.
Sora isn’t completely dead at the time of writing; OpenAI will reveal more about its plans for protecting existing content at a later date.
OS
Android, iOS, Web
Developer
OpenAI
Price model
Free with optional subscription
