Rival AI Video Apps Like Kling AI and Runway See Rapid Growth After OpenAI Sora Shutdown

On March 24, 2026, OpenAI announced the shutdown of its highly-publicized standalone text-to-video AI app, Sora, integrating it as a feature within ChatGPT Plus. This decision highlights the fierce competition in the AI video generation market and the challenges of creating a sustainable business model. Following Sora's closure, rival services such as Kuaishou's 'Kling AI,' Runway's 'Runway Gen-3,' and Google's 'Veo 2' have experienced a rapid surge in user growth.

Sora's journey lasted only six months from its launch in September 2025. A primary factor in its failure was the prohibitively high operational cost. The computational expense to generate a single high-quality video was equivalent to hundreds of ChatGPT conversations, making the $20/month subscription model unsustainable. By February 2026, the 30-day user retention rate had plummeted to below 5%, indicating that most users did not stick around after the initial novelty wore off.

The rapid advancement of competitors also significantly impacted Sora's strategy. While Sora held a clear quality advantage at launch, rivals like Runway Gen-3 and Kling 2.0 matched or surpassed its quality within just a few months. Kling AI, in particular, gained traction among social media content creators by offering faster and more cost-effective video generation. Runway capitalized on its integration with a professional video editing suite.

This event offers crucial lessons for the entire AI industry. Technical superiority alone does not guarantee long-term success; sustainable unit economics, user retention, and deep integration into professional creative workflows are essential. OpenAI is expected to focus on a strategy of consolidating features into its powerful ChatGPT platform to reach a broader user base. The battle for dominance in AI video generation has clearly entered a new phase.