Sora's API shuts down as Kling raises $3B at $18B valuation: AI video's consumer flop, B2B boom
Expertiez0604 · reddit · 2026-09-21
- OpenAI's Sora launched last September, hit #1 on the App Store, but the consumer app was killed in April and the API goes dark on the 24th; a roughly $1B Disney licensing deal evaporated with it.
- Meanwhile Kuaishou's Kling raised up to $3B at an $18B valuation, with $95M quarterly revenue, tripling YoY, 75% from outside China. Synthesia raised at $4B in January; HeyGen does $200M/year.
- The pattern: the flashy consumer version failed while the boring business version prints money — generating video costs real compute per generation, and meme-makers don't pay enough to cover it, but companies making training videos and product demos do. Survivors (Argil, Kling, Synthesia, HeyGen) all sell to budgeted customers with repeatable needs. The author asks whether every consumer AI product eventually follows the same path as image tools.
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