Updated: Mar 25, 2026 – 16 episodes
The AI landscape is buzzing with rapid developments, including Anthropic's accidental leak of its powerful "Claude Mythos" model and its focus on "Computer Use" agents. OpenAI is reportedly shifting strategy, canceling projects like Sora to focus on AGI, while Google rolls out new real-time voice models and Search Live globally. These moves signal a new era of AI capabilities and strategic pivots by major tech players.
Start with The AI Daily Brief for a balanced overview of OpenAI's decision to sunset Sora, as they discuss the strategic refocus on core projects. For a critical perspective, Intelligent Machines (Audio) dives into how OpenAI's market share is slipping in favor of Anthropic. If you're curious about the financial implications, Morning Brew Daily breaks down the costly failure of Sora and OpenAI's spending habits. For a broader context on AI safety, Search Engine offers insights into Anthropic's formation and its contrasting approach to OpenAI's tactics.
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Podcast Episodes Covering This Story
“AI company Anthropic is developing and has begun testing with early access customers a new AI model more capable than any it has released previously, the company said following a data leak that revealed the model's existence. An Anthropic spokesperson said the new model represented a step change in AI performance and was, quote, the most capable we've built to date. The company said the model is currently being trialed by early access customers.”
Ridealong summary
Anthropic's Claude Mythos model represents a significant leap in AI capabilities, positioning the company at the forefront of AI innovation.
“Maybe the most discussed new news, though, as it relates to OpenAI's new focus, is the fact that the mandate to end SideQuest has claimed its first victim. As part of his memo, Altman announced that Sora would be sunset, and OpenAI would discontinue all products that use their video models. Within hours of the report breaking, the official Sora app account on Twitter tweeted, We're saying goodbye to the Sora app.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's decision to discontinue Sora is part of a strategic refocus on core projects, aligning with their broader ambitions in AI development.
“OpenAI is pissing off Microsoft. OpenAI is not your get-along company. This article, the AI spending flip, this is AI model share of first-time enterprise customers. OpenAI declining dramatically while Anthropic increasing dramatically. They flip-flopped. OpenAI, you know, a year ago had 60% of the enterprise market to Anthropics 40%. Now it's Anthropics 73% to OpenAI's 26%.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's decision to discontinue Sora reflects its struggle to maintain a competitive edge against Anthropic, as it loses enterprise market share and faces financial instability.
“OpenAI's top executives are finalizing plans for a major strategy shift to refocus the company around coding and business users, recognizing that a do-everything-all-at-once strategy has put them on the defensive. Fiji Simo, OpenAI CEO of Applications, previewed the changes to employees in an all-hands meeting, telling them that top leaders, including CEO Sam Altman and Chief Research Officer Mark Chen, were actively looking at which areas to deprioritize.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's strategy of pursuing multiple projects simultaneously has backfired, forcing a refocus on core business and coding applications due to competitive pressure from Anthropic.
“Sora is officially dead, the casualty of a strategic pivot towards business encoding tools for OpenAI ahead of its potential IPO... The main problem for Sora is that no one was using it and it was insanely expensive to operate... Forbes estimated that OpenAI was perhaps blowing as much as $15 million per day, and there was no way to make money off this particular consumer app.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's Sora was a costly failure, highlighting the company's unsustainable spending and strategic missteps in consumer apps.
“To explain this with an analogy instead of algebraic variables, what Dario is saying is that instead of convincing his old boss at the car company to add seatbelts to the car, he instead chose to start a rival car company that offered seatbelts. He thinks if Claude ends up being both the best and the safest AI model, his competitors will be forced to make their models equally safe, which to me sounds like putting a lot of faith in markets.”
Ridealong summary
Anthropic's formation was driven by a desire for safer AI, contrasting with OpenAI's aggressive market tactics.
“"Breaking news. Huge leak. OMG, did you guys know that Anthropic was training a better model this whole time? That's great. This is shocking, according to Unemployed Capital Allocator. Yeah. Of course, referencing a leak, a scoop. I wonder if this will trigger the team at DeepMind or OpenAI to consider training a better model. It feels like if they're doing it, they're going to have to respond."”
Ridealong summary
The leak of Anthropic's Claude Mythos model could trigger a competitive response from other AI companies, leading to multiple new models being developed.
“OpenAI's top executives are finalizing plans for a major strategy shift to refocus the company around coding and business users, recognizing that a do-everything-all-at-once strategy has put them on the defensive. Fiji SEMO, OpenAI CEO of Applications, previewed the changes to employees at an all-hands meeting, telling them that top leaders, including Sam Altman and Mark Chen, were actively looking at which areas to deprioritize.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI is refocusing its strategy to prioritize core business and coding applications over side projects like Sora.
“There is a lot of chatter right now about how many products are being killed by OpenAI. Instant Checkout, Sora, the erotic chatbot, with people seeming to suggest that it's the company flailing. I think in many ways it's the opposite. It would be the worst business decision that OpenAI could make to stick with something that wasn't the right move, even if it looked like the right move just a couple of months ago.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's decision to discontinue projects like Sora is a strategic move to avoid the sunk cost fallacy and focus on more promising ventures.
“This model is actually so good that it is considered a cyber security threat and can't be rolled out to the public just yet. But it's not just Anthropic that's building a model that is close to AGI like this. OpenAI has a model codenamed Spud, Google has a model codenamed Agent Smith, and there's many more to come this year.”
Ridealong summary
The Anthropic Claude Mythos leak reveals a model so advanced it's considered a cybersecurity threat, highlighting the risks of rapid AI advancements.
“Sora was a money pit that nobody was using, and keeping it alive was costing OpenAI the AI race. So what happened? Well, after a splashy launch, Sora's worldwide user count peaked at around a million and then collapsed to fewer than 500,000. Meanwhile, the app was burning through roughly $1 million every day, not because people loved it, but because video generation is so costly to run.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's Sora project was a financial drain and its shutdown was necessary to prevent losing ground in the AI race.
“"OpenAI also has a social network, Sora. But instead of connection, Sora provides users with unlimited AI slop, starring themselves. It also serves up content starring fictional characters and dead celebrities... The tragedy of open AI is the same story, and a nihilistic weirdo is getting rich off others' loneliness."”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's Sora project is emblematic of a troubling trend where AI is monetized at the expense of genuine human connection, with Sam Altman profiting from societal loneliness.
“I admire OpenAI for the fact that they've been saying for years now that their sole intention is to build an AI operating system. They want the operating system for your entire life. There wasn't really a blueprint for that. No one really knew quite what that would look like until OpenClaw came around and showed people that, wow, this claw infrastructure is actually kind of cool.”
Ridealong summary
Anthropic's rapid development of an AI operating system is outpacing OpenAI, which is struggling to keep up despite its longstanding ambitions.
“The biggest news, really, and we covered this very briefly in our last show, is that they have canceled Sora, the AI video program. And this is a big deal. Like they didn't just like say we're going to cut the Sora app, which some people thought at first... But this is a big deal. not only did they shut down the app, but they've taken out the entire AI video program.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's discontinuation of Sora and other projects signals a strategic retreat due to internal focus issues, not a decline in generative AI interest.
“It'll be very interesting to see how the AGI definition plays out because it does feel like we're close. I mean, Dario on Dorkesh was saying, like, we're near the end of the exponential, which is like sort of crazy. It feels like Sequoia declared AGI they an investor in OPAI and so there a lot of stuff What do you think about the AGI time.”
Ridealong summary
The definition and realization of AGI are still debated, with some experts suggesting we are close, but practical deployment remains uncertain.
“Now, one little bit of a narrative violation, given that many people had written off Sora, is that recent data from SensorTower showed that over the last month, Sora jumped over 3 million daily active users and was continuously growing. And yet still the information reports that by bringing Sora back into ChatGPT, it signals a strategic shift, refocusing on ChatGPT as the core OpenAI experience.”
Ridealong summary
OpenAI's decision to discontinue Sora and refocus on ChatGPT reflects a strategic shift to consolidate resources amid growing competition from Google's Gemini.