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OpenAI just shut down Sora, its AI video generation tool.

Emerging tech and AI1 min readSam Page

And Disney walked away from a $1 billion investment.

Sora was costing OpenAI an estimated $15 million a day to run.
Its total lifetime revenue?

Just $2.1 million.

Disney had agreed to a $1B investment and a three-year deal to put 200+ characters from Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars into the platform. That deal never saw the light of day.

This was one of the most hyped AI products of the last two years.
And it's gone.

For me, the lesson here isn't really about Sora.

It's about how quickly the landscape can shift when you're building on someone else's platform. If your business strategy depends on a specific AI tool existing in 12 months, that's a risk worth thinking about.

Not because the tech is bad, but because the economics might not work yet.

The companies doing well with AI right now aren't betting everything on one tool. They're building flexibility into how they adopt it.

What's your take? Are businesses moving too fast, or is this just the cost of staying ahead?

First published on LinkedIn.

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---
title: "OpenAI just shut down Sora, its AI video generation tool."
url: https://sam-page.com/thinking/openai-just-shut-down-sora-its-ai-video-generation-tool
date: 2026-03-30
author: Sam Page
type: Post or article
categories: [Emerging tech and AI]
reading_time: 1 min
summary: "And Disney walked away from a $1 billion investment."
first_published: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Ashare%3A7444340589573263360
---

# OpenAI just shut down Sora, its AI video generation tool.

And Disney  walked away from a $1 billion investment.

![](https://sam-page.com/img/thinking/openai-just-shut-down-sora-its-ai-video-generation-tool-li1.webp)

Sora was costing OpenAI an estimated $15 million a day to run.  
Its total lifetime revenue?

Just $2.1 million.

Disney had agreed to a $1B investment and a three-year deal to put 200+ characters from Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars into the platform. That deal never saw the light of day.

This was one of the most hyped AI products of the last two years.  
And it's gone.

For me, the lesson here isn't really about Sora.

It's about how quickly the landscape can shift when you're building on someone else's platform. If your business strategy depends on a specific AI tool existing in 12 months, that's a risk worth thinking about.

Not because the tech is bad, but because the economics might not work yet.

The companies doing well with AI right now aren't betting everything on one tool. They're building flexibility into how they adopt it.

What's your take? Are businesses moving too fast, or is this just the cost of staying ahead?