OpenAI wants to go public — and switched off Sora on the way
The ChatGPT maker quietly filed to list on the stock market. At the same time, it shut down its Sora video generator, which was burning millions a day.
The company that put ChatGPT on everyone’s lips just took a step that changes the game: it filed, confidentially, to go public. In plain terms, OpenAI is getting ready to stop being that mysterious startup and start having its value bounce around a screen every day, like Apple or Google.
What unlocked the door was business money. OpenAI is leaning harder into the enterprise market — especially AI-assisted coding — and that’s where the revenue started building real muscle. Selling to companies that pay every month is a lot steadier than relying on people using ChatGPT for free.
There was a casualty in the spring clean: Sora, the AI video generator, has been discontinued. The numbers tell the story — reportedly it was burning around $15 million a day in compute, while over its entire life it brought in a meagre $2.1 million. Even for a company swimming in cash, that maths doesn’t add up.
Why it matters
When a company like this preps for the stock market, it starts cutting what doesn’t pay and showing tidy books. Translation for the rest of us: fewer dazzling free toys, more tools built for paying customers. The all-you-can-eat AI party may be growing up — into the bill-paying phase.
Illustrative · Photo: Shantanu Kumar / Pexels