OpenAI announced that it would discontinue Sora, its stand-alone artificial-intelligence video app, bringing a planned three-year partnership with Walt Disney to an end. The companies had announced an agreement in December that included a proposed $1 billion Disney investment and licensed use of hundreds of characters in AI-generated video.

OpenAI said it would provide more information about the shutdown schedule, access to the application programming interface and ways for users to preserve their work. Reporting in the supplied evidence said both the consumer app and API access for developers would be closed, with no plan to fold the video feature into ChatGPT. Sora remained operational immediately after the announcement.

Disney’s agreement will not proceed, according to people familiar with the matter cited by multiple outlets. Deadline and The Verge reported that no investment funds had changed hands because the arrangement had not been finalized. The original proposal would have allowed Sora users to generate video with 250 Disney characters and contemplated bringing selected AI-made clips to Disney+. Disney also intended to become a major OpenAI customer.

A Disney spokesperson said the company respected OpenAI’s decision to leave video generation and redirect its priorities. Disney described the collaboration as constructive and said it would continue working with AI platforms on approaches that reach fans while respecting intellectual property and creators’ rights.

Sora’s trajectory had been rapid. OpenAI first unveiled the video generator in 2024. A second-generation model with audio and improved physical behavior arrived in September 2025 alongside the stand-alone app, which quickly led its category in Apple’s US App Store. Its ability to produce recognizable popular characters also intensified concern among copyright specialists, deepfake researchers and entertainment workers.

The service was costly to operate. OpenAI executives had previously limited video generation because of scarce computing chips, and the supplied reports said Sora competed for resources that could support coding, reasoning and text products. The decision came as the company sharpened its focus amid competition from Anthropic and Google and prepared for a possible public stock offering.

OpenAI did not give a detailed public explanation beyond referring to broader research priorities and the difficulty of the decision. That leaves practical questions for users, including final access dates and export procedures, to later announcements. The immediate business consequence was clearer: closing the product at the center of the Disney agreement removed the basis for the licensing and investment package before it became final. Both companies said their collaboration had yielded lessons despite the cancellation.