Sora feature retired: what to tell users and what to flip

If your product had a Sora-powered feature, tell users plainly that the engine changed and move the backend behind a flag. OpenAI's deprecations page lists the Sora 2 models and the Videos API with a shutdown date of 2026-09-24 and no recommended replacement, so nothing will fix itself. Keep the feature name, swap the engine, and let Sume's video generation API return the clips. Be honest in the UI: the look will differ, and a failed job is a normal outcome to message.

What actually ended

Two separate things closed. The consumer Sora app and web experience closed on 2026-04-26, and the API followed. A news report on the two-stage plan, The Decoder's write-up, says users were urged to download content before the cutoffs and that user data is deleted once all deadlines pass. If your users stored clips only in Sora, that is a separate message from the feature change.

Say it in three sentences

A short notice beats a long apology. Say what changed (the video engine behind the feature), what stays (your prompts, aspect choices, saved projects), and what may differ (motion, style, clip length limits). Do not promise a Sora look. Sume's catalog is a different set of models, and the sume/auto option deliberately does not disclose which family served a request, so you cannot promise a specific house style unless you pin a model id.

Map job states to the copy your UI needs

Sume jobs are asynchronous. The jobs guide defines the statuses, and a queued job is a normal accepted state, not a failure. Put each one on screen in words a customer understands.

Flip the backend, not the product

Wrap video creation in one function and choose the engine with a flag. In the Sume branch, submit POST /v1/videos with a catalog model id, store the returned job id, and show progress from the status endpoint. Ramp the flag by account, not by request, so one customer never sees two engines in one project. If a job fails, the core workflow docs say usage is refunded on failure or cancellation before capture, so your copy can say a failed render is not charged without inventing a refund policy.

Finally, keep the old Sora-era records. Existing projects that reference Sora video ids still need their stored mp4s; a regenerated clip is a new job on the new engine, not a recovery of the old one.