OpenAI deprecates Sora web product April 26 — Videos API and Sora 2 models shut down September 24, ending the Sora-as-product experiment
OpenAI deprecated the Sora web product on April 26, 2026 with the Sora 2 models and Videos API scheduled to shut down September 24, 2026. The decision marks OpenAI's exit from the video-generation product category, ceding the segment to ByteDance's Seedance 2.0, Alibaba ATH's HappyHorse-1.0, Google's Veo 3.1, and the open-weight contenders.
The strategic retreat is the read. Sora launched February 2024 as OpenAI's text-to-video flagship; Sora 2 followed in 2025. The deprecation timing (April 26 web shutdown, September 24 API shutdown) gives existing customers ~5 months to migrate to alternative providers. ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 (released Feb 12, 2026) and Alibaba ATH's HappyHorse-1.0 (April 2026) now occupy the top two slots on Artificial Analysis video-generation leaderboards — OpenAI's product was not competitive on capability.
The broader OpenAI focus implication: the video segment was deprioritized in favor of agentic and reasoning capabilities (GPT-5.5 family, Codex+GPT-5 training stack). Multi-model lab strategy increasingly requires explicit segment-by-segment build-or-buy decisions; OpenAI is buying (via Anthropic-comparable enterprise partnerships) in the segments it doesn't lead.
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