OpenAI pulls Sora; Disney exits
OpenAI quietly pulled its Sora video-generation tool and Disney has terminated their partnership as OpenAI rethinks spending while raising fresh capital—it's now planning a record private fundraising push that could value the company near $120 billion. The move signals tighter risk controls ahead of a potential IPO and creates uncertainty for enterprise partners reliant on OpenAI’s bleeding-edge tooling. (allears.net, cxodigitalpulse.com)
Sora debuted as a standalone app in September 2025 and was discontinued roughly six months after launch, according to reporting on the company’s product timeline. (bloomberg.com) (bloomberg.com) OpenAI posted a blog entry titled “Creating with Sora safely” on March 23, 2026 that laid out C2PA provenance metadata, visible and invisible watermarking, updated consent controls and new teen-user protections. (openai.com) (openai.com) Sources say Walt Disney Co. staff were meeting with OpenAI on a Sora-linked project and were informed about the change about 30 minutes after that meeting, a turn of events Reuters first reported. (money.usnews.com) (money.usnews.com) Disney’s planned investment and licensing arrangement tied to Sora — widely reported at roughly $1 billion — has been called off as the companies wind down the collaboration. (deadline.com) (deadline.com) OpenAI told reporters the Sora research team will pivot toward “world simulation” work to advance robotics and other physical‑task research as the company reallocates compute and engineering resources. (bloomberg.com) (bloomberg.com) CFO Sarah Friar said OpenAI is adding about $10 billion to its ongoing private round, taking the haul to “north of $120 billion,” and named participants including Andreessen Horowitz, D.E. Shaw, MGX, TPG and T. Rowe Price. (cnbc.com) (cnbc.com) Several accounts cite a private‑market pre‑money valuation in the hundreds of billions — one report put the company’s valuation near $730 billion in the latest tranche discussions. (theoutpost.ai) (theoutpost.ai)
