OpenAI Pulls the Plug on Sora Video App, Ending Disney's Billion-Dollar Deal
OpenAI announced on 25 March that it will shut down its Sora AI video generation app roughly one year after its public launch, with the consumer app closing on 26 April and the API following on 24 September. The company offered no detailed explanation beyond acknowledging the news was "disappointing," though it stressed it is not abandoning AI video research entirely. The closure also kills a three-year, billion-dollar licensing agreement with Disney, which had planned to integrate Sora into Disney+ and take a US$1 billion stake in the company. App downloads had been in freefall, dropping 32 per cent month-over-month in December 2025 and a further 45 per cent in January 2026, while brand campaigns using the tool from the likes of Toys R Us and Coca-Cola drew audience backlash over output quality.
Why it matters for Asia
For Asia's creative and media industries, the shutdown validates the scepticism many studios expressed early on - Japan's CODA trade group, whose members include Studio Ghibli, had already demanded OpenAI stop training Sora on members' content without permission. The episode is a cautionary tale for regional brands and agencies that built workflows around a single AI video tool, and shifts attention to competitors such as Runway, Kling, and China's homegrown alternatives that are now competing for the market OpenAI just vacated.^
