- Sora reached one million downloads in less than five days, outpacing ChatGPT’s initial growth despite invite-only access.
- The app’s viral surge pushed it to No. 1 on the U.S. App Store, with nearly 100,000 daily installs after launch.
- Sora generates realistic 10-second videos from text prompts, built on OpenAI’s Sora 2 model.
- The app’s popularity has raised concerns about deepfakes, copyright, and likeness misuse, especially involving deceased public figures.
- OpenAI says it will introduce new controls for rights holders and explore revenue-sharing models to address ethical issues.
The text-to-video app climbed to No. 1 on the App Store, showing viral traction and raising new debates about AI-generated media.
OpenAI’s latest app, Sora, has achieved what few consumer AI products have managed before: surpassing one million downloads in under five days. The milestone, confirmed by Sora head Bill Peebles, officially positions the company’s video-generation tool as the fastest-growing app in OpenAI’s history, surpassing even ChatGPT’s record-setting debut on iOS.
According to analytics firm Appfigures, Sora reached 627,000 iOS installs in its first week, compared to ChatGPT’s 606,000. The pace is all the more striking considering Sora remains invite-only and is currently limited to users in the U.S. and Canada.
Within days, it soared to the top spot on the App Store, signaling an extraordinary level of consumer interest in generative video technology.
Peebles noted on X (formerly Twitter) that Sora’s growth “came faster than expected,” crediting both the app’s ease of use and the viral spread of user-generated videos across social platforms.
“Sora reached a million downloads in under five days — faster than ChatGPT — despite being invite-only,” Peebles confirmed, calling it an “unprecedented moment” for consumer AI adoption.
Text-to-Video Goes Mainstream
Sora’s success marks a defining moment for OpenAI’s product ecosystem. Where ChatGPT revolutionized text generation and DALL·E mainstreamed image creation, Sora now extends that innovation to video — the most immersive and viral content format on the internet.
Built around OpenAI’s Sora 2 video model, the app enables users to generate ten-second, hyperrealistic clips from text prompts. Users can also personalize videos using a “cameos” feature, allowing them to insert themselves or others into AI-generated scenes.
While still in limited release, Sora’s early adoption data underscores a larger shift in user behavior: AI video generation is becoming a consumer phenomenon, not just a professional tool.
The app’s simple feed-based interface — where users can both create and browse clips — reflects OpenAI’s intent to make Sora not just a creative utility but a social discovery platform centered on AI content.
Ethical Concerns and Creative Controversy
As Sora’s user base exploded, so did scrutiny of how people were using it. Within days of launch, social feeds filled with AI-generated clips featuring deceased celebrities and copyrighted characters, sparking ethical questions about digital likeness rights and AI’s boundaries in creative reuse.
One of the most visible flashpoints came when Zelda Williams, daughter of actor Robin Williams, publicly condemned AI-generated videos depicting her late father. Her plea drew widespread attention to Sora’s potential for misuse, echoing broader industry concerns around deepfakes and posthumous digital recreation.
OpenAI responded swiftly, acknowledging that the issue extends beyond creativity into legal and moral territory. A company spokesperson told Axios there were “strong free speech interests” in depictions of historical figures but confirmed that recently deceased individuals could be exempted at the request of authorized representatives.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the controversy directly, writing in a blog post that the company was “learning quickly from how people are using Sora” and is now building more granular rights controls.
“We’ll give rights holders more granular control over character generation,” Altman said, adding that OpenAI plans to explore revenue-sharing models with creators and estates in future updates.
This promise reflects an evolving recognition that generative video sits at the crossroads of innovation, intellectual property, and identity — areas where the industry still lacks clear regulation.
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The Numbers Behind the Momentum
Sora’s rapid ascent has few parallels in recent app history. According to Appfigures, downloads peaked at 107,800 installs per day in early October, holding steady above 80,000 even a week later. Canada accounted for about 45,000 downloads, meaning that nearly 96% of Sora’s U.S. adoption rate would have matched ChatGPT’s domestic launch figures even without international users.
That scale of uptake is especially significant given the app’s invite-only onboarding process — a deliberate constraint meant to manage demand and moderate early content trends. Despite that restriction, the platform quickly surpassed other AI entrants such as Anthropic’s Claude and Microsoft’s Copilot, and even rivaled the traction of xAI’s Grok.
The milestone cements OpenAI’s dominance in consumer-facing AI products, showing that demand for creative tools — not just productivity assistants — is accelerating.
A Defining Moment for Generative Media
Sora’s record-breaking debut signals a transformative shift in how people engage with AI. What started with text-based chatbots has evolved into full-fledged multimedia generation — and consumers are responding with unprecedented enthusiasm.
The milestone also represents something deeper: the normalization of synthetic creativity as part of digital life. For OpenAI, this is both an opportunity and a test — to prove that AI-powered storytelling can thrive responsibly at scale.
Sora’s first million downloads may be just the beginning of a new phase in human-computer collaboration, where creation itself becomes a dialogue between imagination and machine intelligence.
