Photo Source: Sora
OpenAI’s Sora is a video-generation tool and social platform that turns text prompts and images into lifelike, creative videos. Think Michael Jackson playing pranks at a KFC, Jake Paul filming a “get ready with me” makeup routine, or cats attending church. The new Sora 2 app from ChatGPT is shaping up to be a bizarre, AI-driven alternative to TikTok, serving up a stream of strange, meme-worthy clips that’s rapidly catching on.
“It’s like ChatGPT, but for video instead of text,” says Robbie Torney, senior director of AI Programs at Common Sense Media. “Users can create their own videos and scroll through a feed of AI-generated content similar to TikTok, except nothing is real.”
In its first month, Sora amassed 3.8 million downloads in the U.S. This rapid rise has brands, agencies, and creators questioning whether this strange new platform, dubbed “AI slop” by some, is a cultural phenomenon worth decoding or just a short-lived digital curiosity.
These developments mark the early stages of AI video evolving into a standalone social medium, Meta recently introduced a similar tool called Vibes within its AI app, though with a notably different tone. For brands and creators accustomed to the largely authentic, user-generated environment of platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, the rise of AI-driven social spaces is uncharted territory. While AI remains a powerful yet polarizing force, stirring both innovation and backlash, its role in social media is still being defined.
Although brands and agencies are increasingly using video-generation tools to enhance their social content, the future of a fully AI-generated social ecosystem remains uncertain.
OpenAI’s new AI video app, Sora, has surpassed 1 million downloads in under five days, faster than ChatGPT’s launch, despite being invite-only and limited to North America, at the time. The app generates 10-second videos from text prompts and has sparked a surge of AI-created clips featuring deceased celebrities and copyrighted characters, raising legal and ethical concerns. OpenAI says it’s working on tools to protect rights holders and plans future revenue-sharing, but the platform’s viral growth continues to fuel debates over AI’s impact on creativity, copyright, and consent.
“You can’t really do anything with the likeness of public figures today [because of safety measures],” said Abraham Yousef, senior insights analyst, Sensor Tower. “A lot of people use, for instance, George Washington or public figures from thousands of years ago … They’ll have them just doing silly stuff like rapping or knocking on people’s doors and bothering grandmas by ding-dong ditching, things like that.”
Brands’ copyrighted material may also surface on Sora, despite OpenAI’s efforts to impose safeguards. Users report that the platform blocks prompts directly tied to specific copyrighted content, but creators often find workarounds. For example, instead of explicitly requesting the DeLorean from Back to the Future, a user might ask for “a stainless steel time-traveling car from the 1980s,” according to Luke Hurd, agency VML’s director of design experience and innovation. However, OpenAI now seems to be catching even these indirect references, tightening its restrictions further.
