Khaberni - The "Sura" platform for generating video clips from texts using artificial intelligence made a wide noise immediately upon its launch to the public, a noise that led some to believe that the days of Hollywood and traditional movie productions were over.
However, OpenAI, the American company responsible for developing the tool and its affiliated platform, surprised everyone this Thursday when it decided to permanently stop "Sura" and completely abandon the project, according to a report published by the American magazine "Fortune."
The company's decision came without revealing the real reasons for this sudden stop, especially since the "Sura" model had obtained its separate app and a platform for sharing the videos produced through it resembling social media platforms in the past months.
The app and its platform gained huge popularity among users who turned to it to generate a variety of video clips, so why did the company make this sudden decision?
Apparent Success
A report by the American tech site "TechCrunch" points to the app "Sura" achieving great success in the first hours of its launch, managing to reach 100,000 downloads a day despite not being available to different users in different countries, only being available exclusively to iPhone users in the United States who had an invitation to access the app.
In a record time, the app managed to break the million download barrier, and the report asserts that it broke this barrier much faster than "ChatGPT."
However, the app quickly began to lose its audience, as after reaching a total of 3.2 million downloads in November 2025, it dropped to 1.2 million downloads in January 2026.
And the decrease in the app’s download rate indicates that its success was temporary or born from the attention "OpenAI" gave to the app, as during the launch campaign Sam Altman, the CEO of the company, shared many clips generated using the platform, along with many celebrities participating in the launch campaign.
However, it seems that the app faced difficulties in maintaining users after the initial launch campaign that drew global attention, pushing Hollywood executives to halt their expansion plans, including American producer and actor Tyler Perry who stopped an expansion plan for his studio which was valued at $800 million.
Legal Annoyance Source
A "TechCrunch" report confirms that "OpenAI" faced difficulties in containing intellectual property rights violations in "Sura," and although the company refused to obtain the legal rights to use some characters, users were able to generate video clips that included these characters using "Sura."
The company tried hard to satisfy users and film and series production studios worldwide, but to no avail, as users continued to generate video clips featuring these characters despite the company putting strict restrictions. Later, "OpenAI" announced a collaboration with the American company "Disney" to use its characters inside the app.
The crisis reached its peak when users started to generate video clips featuring characters of deceased celebrities such as the American singer Michael Jackson, according to a separate report published by "AI Magazine."
High Energy Consumption without Return
A report by the "Financial Times" indicates that the "Sura" platform and its app were consuming "OpenAI"'s resources in data centers to a great extent, as generating video clips requires significant computational power.
This consumption poses a major crisis for companies like "OpenAI" due to the current situation of lacking appropriate energy resources and the crisis of random access memories required to build data centers.
A "TechCrunch" report notes that "Sura" generated no more than two million dollars since its launch, compared to a daily operating cost of fifteen million dollars, according to a separate report from "Forbes."
It is worth noting that "OpenAI" is currently trying to shift from a state of continuous losses to a state of profitability in preparation for the company's IPO, which puts additional pressure on Altman and its management to justify the company's expenses and lack of profits.
A New Phase
A separate report published by "Wall Street Journal" asserts that closing "Sura" is one of the steps "OpenAI" is taking to focus its services more on programming and corporate businesses, the same direction taken by its competitor "Anthropic."
Altman also announced in recent weeks about merging the company's services and apps such as "ChatGPT," the "Atlas" browser, and the programming aid tool "Codex" together in one comprehensive app that provides all of the company’s services.
These steps come against the backdrop of commercial successes achieved by "Anthropic," according to the report, as the company has now become the first choice for commercial companies seeking to integrate artificial intelligence into their operations.
The real question remains, can "OpenAI" get back on track and compete with "Anthropic" in the commercial business sector? Or has it permanently lost this race?
