OpenAI Sora has shut down: checking our 2024 how-to, and how to make AI video now
We rewrote our guide to using Sora now that the service has ended. Sora's apps and website shut down in April 2026. What happened, what our original article got right and wrong, and how to make short AI videos now.
By Jeensuk Yang
HowtoAI · AI video · Revisited
?Who this is for
- You looked up how to use Sora and can no longer log in
- You want to know whether the videos you made with Sora still exist
- You are looking for an AI video tool to use instead of Sora
!What you will learn
- When Sora shut down, and how much of it
- What our 2024 how-to got right, and what it got wrong
- How to export your videos, and which tools to use now
Hi, I'm Hikari.
If you came here looking for how to use Sora, there's something you should know first: Sora shut down in April 2026. In this article I'll walk you through what happened, what our 2024 guide got right and wrong, and how to make short AI videos now.
What happened to Sora
Sora, OpenAI's AI video generator, shut down its website and mobile apps on April 26, 2026. OpenAI had also announced that the Sora API for developers (sora-2 / sora-2-pro) would be retired on September 24, 2026. OpenAI has not announced a successor video service.
Counted from the research preview, it lasted about two years. Here are the main events in order.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Feb 2024 | OpenAI announces Sora as a research preview and shows videos up to one minute long. It is not released to the public. |
| Dec 2024 | Sora opens to the public at sora.com, for ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) and Pro ($200/month) subscribers. Our original article, written in Japanese, dates from this time. |
| Sep 30, 2025 | OpenAI announces a new model, Sora 2, and a Sora app for iOS. Its "cameo" feature, which lets you register your own likeness and appear in other people's videos, draws a lot of attention. |
| Oct 2025 | Videos resembling existing anime and game characters spread. In Japan, on the 10th, Minoru Kiuchi, the minister in charge of intellectual property strategy, said the Cabinet Office had asked OpenAI not to infringe copyright. On the 27th, CODA (the Content Overseas Distribution Association) asked in writing that its member companies' works not be used for training without permission. |
| Oct 30, 2025 | The iOS app becomes available in Japan without an invite code. An Android version follows in November. |
| Dec 2025 | Disney announces an investment and a licensing deal making more than 200 of its characters available in Sora. |
| Mar 25, 2026 | (Japan time) OpenAI announces that Sora is ending. The official X account posts "We're saying goodbye to Sora". The Disney deal ends as well. |
| Apr 26, 2026 | The website and apps shut down. |
| Sep 24, 2026 | The Sora API is retired. OpenAI's developer pages list no successor model. |
HIKARI'S TAKEIn short: the apps, the website and the API are all gone. Sora didn't move into ChatGPT either, so as of October 2026 OpenAI has no video service at all.
Why it ended
OpenAI's official help page does not give a reason. A spokesperson told the press that demand for compute is growing, and that the Sora research team will focus on "world simulation" research that feeds into robotics.
Press reports went a little further. According to TechCrunch (March 29, 2026), citing The Wall Street Journal, users peaked at around one million and fell below 500,000, and running the service cost roughly $1 million a day. The freed-up compute, in this reading, goes to enterprise and coding products.
HIKARI'S TAKEThe official reasons are how compute is allocated and a shift in research focus. The user numbers and the daily cost come from press reports, so read them as reported, not confirmed.
Checking our 2024 article
In December 2024 we published a step-by-step guide to Sora, with screenshots, in Japanese. Here is how what we wrote then holds up today.
| What we wrote | Looking back | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Two plans: Plus ($20/month, up to 720p and 5 seconds) and Pro ($200/month, up to 1080p and 20 seconds) | Matched the official announcement at the time. Sora 2 later turned it into an app-first service, and it is no longer offered. | Accurate then |
| Japanese prompts work, but English gives better results for complex descriptions | Sound advice for the time. | Right |
| Movement of people and animals can look unnatural | Sora 2 improved motion a great deal. As the videos got closer to real, likeness and copyright problems moved to the front. | Half right |
| Business and commercial use needs careful evaluation | In the end, the most accurate thing we wrote. The service itself ended 16 months after launch. | Right |
| Sora's role in OpenAI's future technology will draw even more attention | OpenAI moved its compute to agents and coding, and closed Sora. | Wrong |
| Spend credits deliberately, and draft at low resolution first | Applies just as well to other AI video tools. | Right |
Our biggest miss was not writing a single line about rights.
We described carefully what each screen could do, but said nothing about the fact that it could produce something resembling someone's face or someone's work. Reading it again now, that was the point that mattered most to users.
HIKARI'S TAKEThe features and prices were right for the time. What we got wrong was the outlook, and what we left out was rights. That last one is what we regret most.
If you made videos with Sora
OpenAI's help page (as of October 22, 2026) gives the following instructions.
- Go to sora.chatgpt.com/sunset and press "Export"
- You will get an email when the export is ready
- If there is a final export window, OpenAI will email you before it starts. After that window closes, all Sora data is permanently deleted
There is no separate refund process for Sora; it is handled like any ChatGPT subscription. OpenAI says credits you have already bought can be used in Codex, its coding assistant.
HIKARI'S TAKEIf you still have videos in Sora, try the export now rather than later. Once the window closes, the data is deleted for good.
Making short AI videos now
As of October 2026, OpenAI has no video service to replace Sora. Here are tools you can try right away. Prices change often and vary by country, so check the official pages before you sign up.
Use the Veo video models and others in the Gemini app and Flow. If you have a Google account you can start immediately. In Japan, Google AI Plus starts at ¥1,450 a month and Pro at ¥2,900.
A dedicated AI video service. Besides its own models, you can pick models from other companies such as Kling and Seedance. Pro is $35 a month.
From ByteDance, the maker of the CapCut video editor. For when you want to make short social videos, from generation to editing, in a single app.
Google and Runway prices were checked on their official pages on October 24, 2026.
HIKARI'S TAKEPrices change often, whichever tool you choose. Before you pick one, check that you can save what you make to your own drive.
What small companies can learn from Sora's shutdown
Sora was one of the most-watched products from the most-watched AI company in the world. It still ended 16 months after launch. When we bring an AI tool into our work, we try to settle these four things first.
- Keep what you make. Don't leave generated videos and images inside the service; save them to your company drive.
- Keep the plan, not the tool. Which scenes, in what order, with what mood. Thinking in storyboards, giving instructions scene by scene, carries over to other tools even after Sora is gone.
- Check rights to people and characters first. If something resembles a real person or an existing character, don't use it, even if the tool can make it.
- Stay ready to switch. Don't build your work too tightly around a feature only one tool has.
HIKARI'S TAKETools can end. What's worth keeping is what you made, and your plan for what to show and how.
Common questions about Sora's shutdown
Can I still use Sora?
No. The website and apps shut down on April 26, 2026, and the API was announced to be retired on September 24, 2026.
What happens to the videos I made with Sora?
According to OpenAI's help page, you can export them from sora.chatgpt.com/sunset. After the final export window, the data is permanently deleted.
Can I make videos inside ChatGPT now?
No. Sora's features were not added to ChatGPT, and as of October 2026 OpenAI offers no video generation service.
Is the 2024 how-to still useful with other tools?
The step-by-step instructions were specific to Sora, so no. The prompting approach does carry over to other AI video tools: describe things concretely, specify camera angle and lighting, and give instructions scene by scene.
SOURCES
- OpenAI Help Center, "What to know about the Sora discontinuation" (archived October 22, 2026) help.openai.com/en/articles/20001152
- OpenAI, "Deprecations" (checked October 24, 2026) developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations
- OpenAI, "Sora 2 is here" (September 30, 2025) openai.com/index/sora-2
- Mado no Mori (in Japanese, December 10, 2024) forest.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1646191.html
- Mado no Mori (in Japanese, March 25, 2026) forest.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2095940.html
- Impress Watch (in Japanese, October 30, 2025) watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2059283.html
- Impress Watch (in Japanese, March 25, 2026) watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2095964.html
- GIGAZINE (in Japanese, October 16, 2025) gigazine.net/news/20251016-japan-gov-openai-sora-2
- CODA news release (in Japanese, October 28, 2025) coda-cj.jp (PDF)
- Engadget (March 24, 2026) engadget.com
- TechCrunch, "Why OpenAI really shut down Sora" (March 29, 2026) techcrunch.com
- Google One plans (Japan, checked October 24, 2026) one.google.com/about/plans
- Runway Pricing (checked October 24, 2026) runway.com/pricing
HowtoAI is the AI how-to series we have run in Japanese on multifverse.com since 2024. With our company now named ATATAKAI Digital, the series continues from October 2026 as one category of this blog. Thank you for reading, and we hope you will keep following along.
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Updated Oct 24, 2026