What Sora is
Sora is a family of video generation models developed by OpenAI, producing videos with synchronized dialogue and sound effects from text prompts. OpenAI’s own retrospective on the Sora 2 announcement page reads: “The original Sora model from February 2024 was in many ways the GPT-1 moment for video.” On December 9, 2024, OpenAI launched Sora as a standalone product at sora.com for ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers, with generations up to 20 seconds at 1080p, a storyboard tool, and community feeds; at launch it was not included with Team, Enterprise, or Edu plans, required users to be 18 or older, and was unavailable in the UK, Switzerland, and the EEA.
On September 30, 2025, OpenAI announced Sora 2, calling it its “flagship video and audio generation model” and describing it as more physically accurate, realistic, and controllable than prior systems. The same day OpenAI launched an invite-based iOS social app powered by Sora 2, starting in the US and Canada, with a Cameo-style “characters” feature: after a one-time video-and-audio recording to verify identity, users could insert themselves — or others who had granted access — into generated scenes. ChatGPT Pro users at the time had access to the higher-quality Sora 2 Pro model. These are documented facts from the official Sora 2 announcement.
Product and API discontinuation
The Sora product has been shut down. The timeline below comes from OpenAI’s own pages:
- On March 24, 2026, OpenAI notified users in its deprecations documentation that the Sora 2 video models and the Videos API would be removed.
- On April 26, 2026, the Sora web and app experiences ended; the Sora 2 announcement page carries the notice “As of April 26, 2026, the Sora product is no longer available.”
- On September 24, 2026, the Videos API and the
sora-2,sora-2-pro, and dated snapshot models were removed as scheduled in the deprecations notice.
According to the OpenAI help center article on the Sora discontinuation, users could export their Sora content via sora.chatgpt.com/sunset, and OpenAI recommended exporting as soon as possible; once discontinuation completes and any final export window closes, OpenAI will permanently delete data associated with Sora use. Purchased, unused ChatGPT/Sora credits can still be used for Codex.
Discussion in the show
In Weekly #004’s chapter “从执行指令到理解意图” (from executing instructions to understanding intent), Guizang assessed ByteDance’s Seedance as changing the terms of video-model competition: rather than comparing physics fidelity or single-shot prompt adherence, it emphasized “intelligence” — turning one sentence into eight shots in fifteen seconds, forming a complete story. He said in the Chinese transcript that this direction was inspired by Sora 2, with Seedance then pushing multi-shot storytelling to an extreme. This is a participant’s judgment about model roadmaps, recorded before the Sora shutdown; see the episode 004 chapter.
Frequently asked questions
What is Sora?
Sora is a family of video generation models developed by OpenAI, generating videos with dialogue and sound effects from text prompts; Sora 2, announced in September 2025, is the family’s flagship model. See the official announcement.
Is Sora discontinued? Can I still use it?
No. OpenAI’s official pages show the Sora web and app experiences ended on April 26, 2026, and the Videos API together with the Sora 2 model series was removed on September 24, 2026, per the deprecations documentation. The timeline is in the help center article on the discontinuation.
Can I still export the videos I made with Sora?
The help center documents an export entry: click Export at sora.chatgpt.com/sunset, and you will receive an email when your files are ready. OpenAI recommended exporting as soon as possible; after the final export window closes, data associated with Sora use will be permanently deleted. Details are in the official discontinuation article.
Does Sora have an API?
It did. OpenAI offered a Videos API with models such as sora-2 and sora-2-pro, but the deprecations documentation shows these were removed on September 24, 2026, with no recommended replacement listed.
Was Sora free?
That was the arrangement before shutdown: at launch, Sora 2 in the app was “initially available for free, with generous limits,” Sora usage was included with ChatGPT Plus, and Pro users could access Sora 2 Pro. With the product ending in April 2026, these access channels no longer exist. See the Sora 2 announcement and the official discontinuation article.