OpenAI’s Sora App Hits 1 Million Downloads in Just 5 Days

OpenAI’s Sora video app is rewriting the playbook for AI-driven creativity. In just five days, the invite-only platform has achieved over 1 million downloads, averaging around 200,000 new users per day. For an app that’s not yet open to the public and currently limited to North America, that figure is nothing short of extraordinary.

It signals not just curiosity, but a full-fledged cultural moment forming around AI-generated video content.

At its core, Sora is powered by OpenAI’s text-to-video model, Sora 2, capable of transforming short written prompts into dynamic, lifelike videos. The app’s sleek social interface lets users share their creations in a TikTok-style feed called the “For You” page, designed to learn from each user’s tastes. Users can start with a static image and animate it into a moving scene – or go further by inserting their hyper-realistic AI avatars into any setting using the Cameo feature. Sound design is automated too: background music, ambient sound effects, and even dialogue are generated to fit the scene’s tone and context. What once required professional animation tools and audio editing can now be achieved in seconds with a single sentence.

This rapid rise of Sora has, however, drawn scrutiny from the entertainment industry. A number of users have created derivative content using recognizable characters from franchises such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Rick and Morty, and South Park – leading to questions about copyright boundaries in AI-generated media. The Motion Picture Association (MPA) issued a statement criticizing the proliferation of AI-made clips that use protected characters and stories, urging OpenAI to take “immediate and decisive action.” In response, the company is reportedly working on tools to give copyright holders tighter control over character likenesses and content usage.

Despite these concerns, Sora represents a major step in democratizing video creation. Just as DALL·E transformed static art, Sora is doing the same for motion. Whether it becomes the next TikTok or faces stricter regulatory walls, one thing is clear: OpenAI has once again changed what people imagine possible with AI.