Now, that crowd has something to celebrate: the end of OpenAI’s video generation platform Sora.
On Tuesday, March 24, OpenAI announced it was shutting down Sora, its AI-first TikTok clone, just months after its launch in September of 2025.
“We’re saying goodbye to Sora,” the company said in a statement. “To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.”
The news came as a surprise, especially given Disney’s billion-dollar investment in Sora in December, which came with a licensing deal that would allow Disney characters to appear in Sora-generated videos. With the end of Sora, that deal is off—and on social media, the party is on.
Cause for celebration
Sora was a controversial platform from its inception, with users quickly finding ways around the app’s guardrails to generate deepfakes of figures including Martin Luther King Jr. and Robin Williams, prompting outcry from their family estates. Even beyond legal and privacy concerns, Sora’s output was largely deemed “AI slop,” the kind that’s landed celebrities like Zara Larsson in hot water for reposting.
Sora’s shutdown marks the first time OpenAI has outright discontinued one of its tools. Coupled with the loss of Disney’s investment, social media users cautiously celebrated what looks like the first major hit to AI’s cultural dominance.
