{"id":29022,"date":"2026-03-29T16:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=29022"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:35:17","slug":"soras-shutdown-could-be-a-reality-check-moment-for-ai-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=29022","title":{"rendered":"Sora\u2019s shutdown could be a reality check moment for AI video"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"tcembed-iframe tcembed--megaphone wp-block-tc23-podcast-player__embed\" height=\"200px\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=TCML2413502835%20\"><\/iframe>\n\t<\/p>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">OpenAI announced this week that it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/24\/openais-sora-was-the-creepiest-app-on-your-phone-now-its-shutting-down\/\">shutting down its Sora app<\/a> and related video models just six months after launching the app.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the latest episode of <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/podcasts\/equity\/\">TechCrunch\u2019s Equity podcast<\/a>, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O\u2019Kane, and I debated what the decision means for OpenAI and for the industry more broadly. To some extent, the move seems consistent with what we\u2019ve been hearing about OpenAI as it focuses on enterprise and productivity tools ahead of a possible IPO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, Kirsten suggested that OpenAI\u2019s decision to shutter Sora was \u201ca sign of maturity that was nice to see in an AI lab.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Sora\u2019s shutdown \u2014 along with <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/15\/bytedance-reportedly-pauses-global-launch-of-its-seedance-2-0-video-generator\/\">ByteDance\u2019s reported delay in launching its Seedance 2.0 video model worldwide<\/a> \u2014 could also be a reality check moment for the makers of AI video tools, and for evangelists who claim these tools will be replacing Hollywood anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Anthony:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s worth highlighting that it\u2019s not just the app. I mean, the app was particularly unappealing to me, at least, and I think to other people, because it was this idea of a social network without people, where it\u2019s just nothing but slop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But beyond the app, it seems like OpenAI is basically winding down pretty much everything it\u2019s doing with video. <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/tech\/ai\/openai-set-to-discontinue-sora-video-platform-app-a82a9e4e?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqcHga8W0Hn2OS__PrSUtJZUYbgC01yYrw51JZKdAXyfIg4EQC7MIB-Z&amp;gaa_ts=69c94e32&amp;gaa_sig=fT8Fp5cVuqpHVfAn4CVT_WSzq6AxQXz6PYEn7ORI4_nHjMMZjJzJOR74TvV3Ws7E5Dy53Kug7HCcA_GVq8F3UA%3D%3D\">According to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, which broke some of this news, it\u2019s really about this idea that Open AI is \u2014 in advance of potentially going public \u2014 really trying to focus on business products, enterprise products, programming products. [So] this consumer social app, [and] more broadly video, is not a priority right now.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">San Francisco, CA<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">October 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Sean:<\/strong> Yeah, I never really used [the app]. The idea of it turned me off for a number of different reasons. And you know, it was a good reminder that Open AI \u2014 and I don\u2019t mean this to knock them down in really any way \u2014\u00a0 but I think this was a reminder, probably, for them internally, of the element of luck [\u2026] in how successful ChatGPT became.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clearly, there is something that is valuable there to people, I don\u2019t want to take away from that, because you do not get to the usage numbers that we\u2019ve heard reported from them without there being something that is working right \u2014and even more so that it\u2019s been kept up over a number of years and developed into something that stays meaningful to people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there was an element of Sora, when it came out, of like, \u201cWe built the most successful consumer product ever, and now we\u2019re doing it again. And we\u2019re going to bring in Disney and all this stuff.\u201d I think this is just a really harsh reminder of like it\u2019s not always going to be an absolute shortcut to the top of the greatest consumer products ever and that there really needs to be something that people feel like they\u2019re getting some meaning out of it for it to stick around.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kirsten:<\/strong> Yeah, I actually want to give OpenAI props for this decision, because we sometimes make fun of the whole idea of \u201cmove fast and break things,\u201d but I think that there is some value [to] companies that can iterate very quickly and then kill off products that are not working and not feel a sense of failure behind it. I mean, there was real money that was lost. If you were to look at the deal with Disney,<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/digital\/news\/openai-shutting-down-sora-video-disney-1236698277\/\"> that was a billion dollar deal<\/a>, but if you look at \u2014 and we don\u2019t have the insight into this because we\u2019re not seeing their balance sheets \u2014 but what were they spending on this and what was the long-term value for the company?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think that while, sure, it was interesting to see what they could create, their decision to shutter it, to me, showed a sign of maturity that was nice to see in an AI lab.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Anthony:<\/strong> In terms of what it means for OpenAI, it seems very consistent with everything that we\u2019ve been hearing about their strategy going forward. It doesn\u2019t seem like a huge blow or anything like that in terms of how we think about the future of generative AI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Particularly in video, it\u2019s interesting because it also comes at this time that there\u2019s been reporting around Seedance, which is <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/26\/bytedances-new-ai-video-generation-model-dreamina-seedance-2-0-comes-to-capcut\/\">the ByteDance generative AI model<\/a> [for video]. There\u2019s reports that <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/15\/bytedance-reportedly-pauses-global-launch-of-its-seedance-2-0-video-generator\/\">[Seedance 2.0 has] been delayed<\/a> because there\u2019s engineering and legal questions and basically [figuring out], \u201cCan we build IP protections into this?\u201d Which apparently they hadn\u2019t taken as seriously before.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, it\u2019s this reality check moment. There were these really hyperbolic statements, including from people within Hollywood that [were] like, \u201cWe\u2019re done, this is the future, it\u2019s just typing in prompts and making feature films.\u201d And it turns out that for all kinds of technical and legal reasons, it is not that easy and we are very, very far from that happening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Sean:<\/strong> And the last thing I think we should say about this, too, is this is one of a number of decisions that appear to be happening after <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/05\/07\/instacart-ceo-fidji-simo-is-joining-openai\/\">Fidji Simo came in<\/a> [and began] sort of running the day-to-day operations. That\u2019s just a huge dynamic that\u2019s changed inside of OpenAI. And I think the further we get away from that moment of of her being tapped to run the show, and especially these consumer products and decide the fate of them, the easier it\u2019ll be to look back at this moment in time and think about how big a moment that was for this company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/29\/soras-shutdown-could-be-a-reality-check-moment-for-ai-video\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OpenAI announced this week tha&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[249],"tags":[7806,703],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}