OpenAI confirms Sora 1 shutdown date for US users, Sora 2 becomes default

OpenAI is officially pulling the plug on Sora 1 in the United States. Starting March 13, 2026, users in the US will no longer be able to access the older version, and Sora 2 takes over as the only experience going forward.

Sora 1 launched publicly in December 2024 as part of OpenAI’s “12 Days of OpenAI” event, but the version users got was already called Sora Turbo, an upgraded build over the original February 2024 demo. Sora 2 arrived later and brought some real improvements like better physics, audio-visual sync, and tighter scene consistency across clips. Sora 1 had a known habit of floating objects, character swaps between shots, and clips with no audio at all.

Now OpenAI wants to stop maintaining both and move everyone to the newer version. OpenAI says the reason for this move is that Sora 1 runs on older models and infrastructure, and keeping a split experience adds complexity.

What gets removed

When Sora 1 goes away, all your generations, likes, and remixes created on it disappear with it. There is no automatic migration, so anything you want to keep needs to be exported manually before March 13.

You can export data through Settings > Data Controls > Export data inside the Sora web app. Your export will include content from Sora 1, Sora 2, and ChatGPT, all bundled into a file sent to your registered email. If you run into trouble, OpenAI’s Privacy Portal is another route to request your data.

One important thing to note is that image generation inside Sora is also going away once Sora 1 is removed. OpenAI is pointing users to ChatGPT for image creation going forward, since Sora 2 focuses entirely on video.

Who’s affected and what’s next

Right now this only applies to the US. Users in countries where Sora 2 hasn’t launched yet will keep Sora 1 until Sora 2 rolls out in their region. OpenAI hasn’t given specific dates for those markets.

OpenAI has been steadily thinning its product line, retiring older models in favor of cleaner, unified experiences. The company recently saw pushback over plans to retire GPT-4o from ChatGPT too, and a #Keep4o movement actually gained real traction among users who weren’t ready to let go. But that had no impact on OpenAI’s decision to get rid of it anyway.

If you have Sora 1 content, export it now. OpenAI says it will email users before the final export window opens after full deprecation, but that window will be limited, and after it closes, Sora 1 content is gone for good.

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