OpenAI on October 13 reportedly in talks with Katzenberg-Pibbels studio to convert the model into a professional film tool

The Information reported on October 12 that OpenAI is in talks with a stealth AI video startup to hand over the previously discontinued Sora model. The startup was co-founded by Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, former Sora research lead Bill Pibbels, and former Dropbox CFO Soojit Shah, and was established just a few months ago with its name still undisclosed. Under the disclosed arrangement, the startup will take over and re-engineer the Sora platform and develop software or services for film production companies, allowing Sora to return to market as a professional film tool. Earlier this year, OpenAI shut down the Sora model and its TikTok-like video app, closed the consumer applications and web platform, and terminated its roughly $1 billion Disney film collaboration to cut non-core high-compute projects and redirect resources toward enterprise AI and coding tools. Commercial terms of the deal have not been finalized and it remains unclear whether the startup will receive Sora weights, but the shift from a consumer toy to an industrial tool reflects OpenAI's clear strategy of divesting compute-heavy consumer businesses amid compute cost and capital return pressures.