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OpenAI may revive Sora as a tool for Hollywood, The Information reports
IA en un minuto newsroom · Editor: Jon Elgezabal
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Sora, the video generator OpenAI closed this year, could resurface as underlying technology for cinema. The Information says a startup created by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Bill Peebles and Sujay Jaswa is talking to OpenAI about using it, modifying it and marketing products of its own. No agreement is signed, and nobody knows whether the company would end up holding the model's weights.
OpenAI shut Sora down this year and is now negotiating a return for its video model through a film startup.
A startup building AI video for filmmakers is negotiating with OpenAI for access to Sora (the OpenAI model that generates video), with the aim of adapting it and selling programs and other services based on it. The Information published the story on Monday, October 12, citing a person with knowledge of the talks, as reported by PYMNTS. No deal has been closed, and the story does not stem from an OpenAI announcement.
The startup, whose name has not come out, has three co-founders: Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks; Bill Peebles, who headed Sora research at OpenAI; and Sujay Jaswa, a former chief financial officer of Dropbox. PYMNTS adds that Katzenberg and Jaswa appear on their LinkedIn profiles as co-founders of the technology investment firm WndrCo.
It is not clear either whether the startup would be handed the model's weights (the parameters that determine how it responds). Even so, if the agreement goes through, its access would be deep enough to customize the model thoroughly, according to the same source. The Information notes that AI developers tend to keep their weights under lock and key, but that sharing them here would be no surprise, because Peebles already knows the model from the inside.
This year OpenAI began dismantling its AI video business within a cutback in side projects, through which it sought to concentrate on its main lines of business and prepare a stock market listing, PYMNTS recalls. Xataka places the shutdown of Sora in March, puts it down to the need to free up computing power and says it took down with it a pact with Disney valued at $1 billion.
If it goes ahead, Sora would not return as the consumer product it once was, but as the foundation for programs and services aimed at the film industry. According to Xataka, which also cites The Information, OpenAI would get a stake in the outcome in return.
Why it matters · analysis and opinion
Closing a product is not the same as throwing the technology away. If the talks come off, OpenAI would be trying another way to get value from a model that is costly to keep running: instead of offering it to the general public and supplying the computing power itself, it would hand it to a specialist firm that knows the sector and handles the selling. The detail that says most about the market is who sits on the other side: the researcher who led Sora and a historic Hollywood producer, technique and contacts at one table. For production companies, agencies and small studios, the signal is that generated video is heading toward professional tools tailored to the trade rather than consumer apps. Much remains unknown: everything comes from an anonymous source, there is no deal, and timelines, prices and terms of use are missing.
Source: PYMNTS · Written with the help of AI: how we make the news
