Don't Get Too Attached to Any AI App

Last fall, it looked like Sora, a video generation model, was set to be OpenAI’s next big thing. Last week, the company abandoned it completely in a decision so sudden that it even caught Disney by surprise—and the House of Mouse had a $1 billion pledged investment tied to the model. Now, the Wall Street Journal has an autopsy on the decision, and it shows OpenAI in a bind that is becoming increasingly common for AI companies: There’s only so much computing power to go around. Per the report, OpenAI’s decision to axe Sora came as the company was putting the finishing touches on a new AI model that will reportedly emphasize coding and enterprise services—an area the company has increasingly focused on as it tries to figure out how to turn a profit on any of its products. To launch that model, though, the company needed more compute, which meant it had to make a choice: Keep the resource-intensive Sora up and running, even though it was reportedly losing $1 million per day, or pull the plug and free up those processors for the new model. OpenAI chose the latter. And while Sora had certainly fallen off in popularity—it went from hitting more than one million users faster than just abo