OpenAI Shuts Down Sora App and API: What Developers Need to Know (2026)

OpenAI on March 24, 2026 confirmed it is shutting down Sora — its AI video generation platform — including the iOS app, the Sora.com web experience, and the developer API. The Sora app and web interface go dark on April 26, 2026; the Sora 2 API endpoint is deprecated on September 24, 2026.

What Happened

OpenAI launched Sora 2, its flagship AI text-to-video model, in September 2025 alongside a dedicated iOS app and Sora.com web platform. On launch day, it became the top downloaded app in the App Store's Photo and Video category. However, by February 2026, monthly downloads had fallen from roughly 3.3 million at launch to approximately 1.1 million — a drop of more than 65% in under five months.

On March 24, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, NBC News, and Variety simultaneously confirmed the shutdown announcement. OpenAI stated it would share detailed timeline information shortly. The company confirmed that Sora 2 video generation will remain accessible to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers through the ChatGPT interface — but the standalone app, Sora.com, and the developer API will all be discontinued.

The shutdown also collapses a high-profile partnership: in December 2025, The Walt Disney Company announced a three-year agreement with OpenAI centered on Sora, including plans for a $1 billion investment in AI video capabilities. That deal is now being wound down entirely, per Variety reporting.

Key Details

• App and web shutdown: April 26, 2026 — The Sora iOS app and Sora.com will go dark. Export any content before this date.
• API deprecation: September 24, 2026 — The Sora 2 API endpoints (POST /v1/videos, models sora-2 and sora-2-pro) will be shut off, giving developers approximately six months to migrate.
• Sora 2 model stays inside ChatGPT — ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) and Pro ($200/month) subscribers can still generate Sora videos through ChatGPT — just not programmatically via the API.
• Downloads fell 65% in 5 months — From ~3.3 million (November 2025) to ~1.1 million (February 2026), signaling unsustainable consumer traction for the standalone product.
• Disney's $1B deal collapsed — OpenAI's highest-profile creative industry partnership is being wound down alongside the product shutdown.
• Deepfakes cited as contributing factor — The app's face-scanning "Characters" feature allowed realistic deepfakes of real people with weak guardrails, creating internal and public liability concerns.

What Developers and Users Are Saying

Reaction across r/OpenAI, r/SoraRefugees, and Hacker News is sharply divided. Developers who built production integrations on the Sora 2 API are facing urgent pipeline rewrites. On Reddit, one widely upvoted post reads: "We built an entire post-production pipeline on this API. Six months is not enough time." A separate thread titled "I told you so" on r/SoraRefugees gained traction from users who predicted the app's trajectory early.

On Hacker News, the most upvoted comment argues that OpenAI's decision reflects the "unsustainable economics of high-quality video generation" — noting that each Sora generation is orders of magnitude more GPU-intensive than text output, making the public API pricing structurally unprofitable ahead of OpenAI's anticipated IPO. Runway ML, Pika Labs, and Kling AI are frequently named in discussions as the most viable alternatives for displaced Sora users.

What This Means for Developers

If you are using the Sora API in production, your migration window closes September 24, 2026. Take these steps now: audit all integration points calling /v1/videos, evaluate alternative video generation APIs (Runway ML, Pika Labs, Kling AI, and Google's Veo are the primary options as of March 2026), and update your documentation and client dependencies. OpenAI's official deprecations page at developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations carries the official end-of-life timeline. Teams that only used Sora through the ChatGPT UI — not the API — are less affected: Sora 2 generation continues in ChatGPT for Plus and Pro subscribers after the app shutdown.

What's Next

OpenAI has not announced a replacement video API. The company has indicated its strategy is to redirect AI video compute toward "real-world applications" including robotics. The official Sora discontinuation FAQ is at the OpenAI Help Center. Monitor the API deprecations page for any changes to the September 24 cutoff date.

Sources

• OpenAI Help Center — What to know about the Sora discontinuation — Official primary source
• TechCrunch — Sora is shutting down (March 24, 2026)
• Bloomberg — OpenAI Discontinues Sora App, Shuts Down Video API
• Variety — OpenAI Shutting Down Sora; Disney Drops $1B Investment
• The Decoder — OpenAI's two-stage Sora shutdown timeline
• OpenAI API Deprecations Page — Official API end-of-life documentation