OpenAI has revealed that Sora’s web and app experiences will end on April 26, 2026, and the Sora API will be discontinued on Sept. 24. For users and developers, this marks the end of a product OpenAI had positioned as a major step in video generation.
OpenAI had already removed Sora 1 for U.S. users on March 13. Its developer changelog shows the v1/videos API for Sora 2 and Sora 2 Pro launched on Oct. 6, 2025, and that OpenAI expanded the Sora API on March 12, 2026 with longer generations, 1080p output for Sora 2 Pro, video extensions and Batch API support.
On March 19, OpenAI added an editor to Sora on iOS and web.
Other recent AI pullbacks and what they have in common
Sora is not the only recent AI pullback. Character.AI said in November 2025 that it would begin removing open-ended chat for under-18 users in the U.S., describing the rollout as being handled “with user safety in mind” and saying it wanted to be “as cautious as possible in this transition.”
Meta said on Jan. 23 that it was “temporarily pausing teens’ access” to existing AI characters globally while it develops a new version, with parental controls to apply to that updated experience.
Reuters reported in March, citing Bloomberg News and a source familiar with the matter, that Oracle and OpenAI had dropped a planned 600-megawatt expansion near their Abilene, Texas site, with the capacity to be met at other campuses instead.
Though the moves are not identical, as Sora is being discontinued and Character.AI and Meta have narrowed user access rather than shutting products entirely.
Plus, the Abilene change concerned infrastructure, not a consumer feature. Even so, the cases show that some high-profile AI efforts are being narrowed, paused or discontinued after launch. The reasons also differ, spanning teen-safety controls, product changes and infrastructure planning rather than a single shared cause.
Investment remains high, but value capture is uneven
This is playing out in a market where investment remains high, but value capture is still uneven. Stanford HAI said corporate AI investment reached $252.3 billion in 2024.
McKinsey said only about one-third of respondents were scaling AI across their organizations, while 39% attributed any level of enterprise-wide EBIT impact to AI.
BCG said only 5% of companies in its 2025 study were getting substantial value from AI, while 60% had little or no value to show for their AI investment so far.