With Sora shuttered, smaller video AI apps surge into the spotlight

The Sora app. (Bloomberg) By Natalie Lung April 1, 2026 9:57 AM PT Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print A week after OpenAI said it would shutter its artificial intelligence video generator, Sora, rival tools like Kling AI and RunwayML are already gaining ground.Kling AI, a video generator app owned by China’s Kuaishou Technology, saw global weekly active users jump 4% to an average of 2.6 million last week from the prior week, according to iOS and Android data that market intelligence firm Sensor Tower shared with Bloomberg News.Even before OpenAI said it would shut down Sora, Kling AI was leading in global monthly active users, averaging 7.8 million in March compared with 4.7 million for Sora. (The website and app for Sora will go away on April 26, while the developer platform will be discontinued later this year, on Sept. 24.) Advertisement Other apps also saw a bump: RunwayML and Vidu each notched a 1% increase in weekly active users the same week. (Runway AI Inc.’s app is only available on Apple Inc.’s app store, while Beijing Shengshu Technology Co.’s Vidu is on both iOS and Android.) In another sign of investor confidence in their technology, Runway and Shengshu both raised new funding in February.OpenAI’s decision to discontinue support opens the door for smaller rivals to win users and gain revenue in a niche that’s seeing surging demand from creatives, filmmakers and marketers. Alphabe...