Why OpenAI Sora Was Shut Down: High Costs and Falling User Demand

[etfs]

OpenAI Sora was shut down just months after launch, not because of controversy—but because it wasn’t sustainable. Despite early hype, user numbers dropped from around one million to under 500,000, while the tool continued to burn roughly $1 million per day due to the high cost of generating AI videos.

The reality is that video generation requires massive computing power, making it one of the most expensive AI services to run. With declining usage and rising costs, continuing to operate Sora became a liability rather than an advantage in the competitive AI landscape.

[mendez]

turns out generating hollywood-level video on demand isn’t cheap, who knew