OpenAI AI Updates: April 18, 2026

1. Kevin Weil and Bill Peebles Exit as OpenAI Doubles Down on Enterprise

OpenAI. Kevin Weil, who led OpenAI for Science, and Bill Peebles, the researcher behind Sora, both announced departures on Friday alongside Srinivas Narayanan, the CTO of enterprise applications. The exits follow last month’s shutdown of Sora — reportedly burning $1M/day in compute — and the folding of the Science team into other research groups. The shift signals a retreat from consumer moonshots toward enterprise AI and the forthcoming “superapp.” Source

2. Sora Sunset Timeline Set: App Goes Dark April 26, API Follows in September

OpenAI. The Sora web and app experiences will be discontinued on April 26, with the Sora API sunset scheduled for September 24. The two-stage timeline gives API customers about five months to migrate off the model, while consumer video-generation users lose access in just over a week. Source