Data from Appfigures shows that Sora recorded 627,000 iOS downloads in its first week, slightly ahead of ChatGPT’s 606,000 during its launch. About 45,000 of Sora’s installations came from Canada, with the rest from the United States. That means even if limited to the U.S. market, Sora would have achieved roughly 96% of ChatGPT’s launch performance.

Confirming the achievement, Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI, said on X that the app reached a million downloads across platforms in under five days, making it “faster than ChatGPT, despite being invite-only.”

Within days of its release, Sora climbed to the No. 1 spot on the U.S. App Store, overtaking other generative tools such as Anthropic’s Claude, Microsoft’s Copilot, and xAI’s Grok. On its launch day, it recorded 56,000 downloads, peaking at 107,800 on October 1, according to Appfigures.

Despite its restricted rollout, Sora’s viral spread has been impossible to ignore. Across social media platforms, users have flooded timelines with hyper-realistic, AI-generated short videos, some featuring familiar cartoon characters or even recreations of deceased celebrities. This trend has reignited global debates around copyright and digital ethics.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) criticised OpenAI for enabling users to generate videos with copyrighted characters. “Videos that infringe our members’ films, shows, and characters have proliferated on OpenAI’s service,” said Charles Rivkin, CEO of the MPA. 

“OpenAI needs to take immediate and decisive action to address this issue. Well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here.”

Videos featuring figures from SpongeBob SquarePants, Rick and Morty, and South Park have already appeared on Sora, alongside deepfakes of the late actor Robin Williams, prompting his daughter, Zelda Williams, to publicly urge users to stop sharing AI-generated clips of her father.

In response to the issue, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced a policy reversal. The company will shift from an opt-out model, which allowed the use of copyrighted material unless rights holders objected, to an opt-in system that gives creators “granular control” over how their intellectual property is used. 

Altman also confirmed that OpenAI plans to share revenue with creators whose licensed content is featured on Sora and may introduce monetisation options for original videos.

Speaking at OpenAI’s DevDay event, Altman acknowledged that Sora’s restrictions have frustrated some users but urged understanding as the company refines its policies. “Please give us some grace,” he said. “The rate of change will be high.”

According to OpenAI’s status page, the outage began around 11pm WAT (3pm PT) and continued until approximately 5am WAT (9pm PT) when services were mostly restored.

In a brief statement, OpenAI acknowledged the incident on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “ChatGPT, API, and Sora were down today but we’ve recovered.”

The announcement drew a cryptic response from Elon Musk, who replied, “@Grok ,” indirectly inviting users to leverage his new AI platform.

OpenAI’s status updates revealed that users are gradually regaining access to the affected platforms.

During the outage, visitors to ChatGPT’s website encountered an error message stating that the issue had been identified and was being resolved.

Adding to the day’s complications, OpenAI launched its integration with Apple’s iOS 18.2, which some speculated might be connected to the outage.

However, Edwin Arbus, OpenAI’s developer community lead, clarified on X, “The OpenAI outage was unrelated to 12 Days of OpenAI or Apple Intelligence. We made a config change that caused many servers to become unavailable.”

Sora’s Launch by OpenAI Overwhelms Servers

The outage coincided with the public debut of Sora, OpenAI’s video-generation AI tool, which had already faced capacity issues earlier in the week.

CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the overwhelming interest in Sora, admitting the company had underestimated the demand.

Users reported difficulty generating videos due to server overload on launch day.

Sora’s functions, which include generating short videos based on text or image prompts, have attracted huge interest, particularly among gaming and creative communities.

However, its training data, which reportedly includes publicly available sources such as video game streams, has raised questions about intellectual property rights and potential copyright violations.

The training of generative AI models like Sora on unlicensed content has increasingly become a contentious issue.

Experts say that if video game playthroughs and related materials are part of Sora’s training data, OpenAI could face legal challenges.

Copyright attorneys highlight the layered intellectual property rights inherent in-game content, including game developers’ copyrights, streamers’ unique contributions, and user-generated content.

“Training an AI model on unlicensed footage from games risks infringing on multiple layers of copyright protection,” noted Joshua Weigensberg, an IP attorney.

This issue could bring about legal challenges, as courts are trying to find a balance between fair use and creators’ rights.

Nonetheless, OpenAI continues its “12 Days of OpenAI” event, a product launch series leading up to the holiday season.

Recent announcements have included updates to its o1 reasoning model, enhancements to the Canvas platform, and the integration with Apple Intelligence.

While the company remains tight-lipped about Sora’s training specifics, it maintains that its tools adhere to industry standards.

However, with generative AI becoming more integrated into creative industries, OpenAI and similar companies may face increased investigations over the ethical and legal dimensions of their operations.

This is an expansion into multimodal AI, targeting competitors such as Meta, Google, and Stability AI, which have similar tools in development.

Initially introduced in February 2023 as part of a research preview by OpenAI, Sora was limited to safety testers. The model, now branded as Sora Turbo, is offered at no additional cost to subscribers, enabling them to create videos up to 20 seconds long in 1080p resolution. 

Users can choose from widescreen, vertical, or square formats, and generate content either from scratch or by blending existing assets.

While accessible in most regions where ChatGPT operates, the rollout excludes the European Union, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. 

OpenAI has announced plans to introduce targeted pricing for different user categories early next year, reiterating its goal of making the technology widely accessible.

OpenAI has implemented measures to prevent misuse of the tool, specifically prohibiting the creation or upload of harmful content, including child exploitation materials and deepfake videos. 

The company has limited the feature for uploading real individuals, intending to expand access as its safeguards improve.

To promote transparency, all Sora-generated videos include metadata identifying them as AI-generated, along with visible watermarks by default. OpenAI is also developing internal tools to verify the origins of content created using the model.

With Sora’s integration, OpenAI is enhancing creativity within its space. The company aims to shape industry norms around responsible AI use while building tools that enhance content creation. 

As technology evolves rapidly, the demand for TTS solutions grows, driven by the need for accessibility, convenience, and efficiency.

For instance, in March 2024, OpenAI, a pioneering artificial intelligence research laboratory, introduced Voice Engine, a groundbreaking text-to-speech (TTS) platform.

This innovative system utilized just a 15-second audio sample to produce an artificial rendition of a human voice.

Following the successful launch of Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video AI model, earlier this year, this advancement underscored their dedication to advancing the frontiers of creative AI applications.

With major players constantly innovating and introducing cutting-edge features such as natural language processing and AI-driven voices, the market experiences a heightened interest from various industries, including education, entertainment, automotive, and healthcare.

These advancements enhance user experience while catering to the growing demand for personalized and interactive content consumption.

Consequently, the TTS market is poised for significant growth as businesses and consumers alike embrace the benefits of these evolving technologies.

The overall Text To Speech (TTS) Industry is classified based on the offering, deployment type, organization size, voice type, language, vertical, and region.

The services segment will undergo groundbreaking development from 2024 to 2032. With the rise of digital content consumption across multiple platforms, there is an increasing need for TTS solutions to enhance accessibility and user experience.

From e-learning platforms to virtual assistants and navigation systems, businesses seek TTS technologies to make their services more inclusive and engaging. As a result, the market for TTS services continues to grow as organizations recognize the value of integrating speech synthesis into their products and platforms.

Text To Speech (TTS) market share from the BFSI segment will exhibit a noteworthy CAGR from 2024 to 2032. As financial institutions strive to enhance customer experiences and accessibility across digital platforms, TTS technology offers a solution to convert text-based information into spoken audio.

From enabling voice-enabled banking applications to providing accessibility features for visually impaired customers, TTS is becoming an integral part of the BFSI industry’s digital transformation strategy, driving the demand for TTS solutions in this sector.

Europe Text To Speech (TTS) market will showcase a modest CAGR from 2024 to 2032. With a diverse population speaking multiple languages, TTS technology is invaluable for multilingual communication and accessibility. European businesses are increasingly integrating TTS into their products and services to cater to a broader audience and comply with accessibility regulations.

Additionally, the growing adoption of TTS in the education, entertainment, and automotive sectors further fuels the demand.

As a result, the TTS market in Europe continues to expand rapidly to meet diverse linguistic and accessibility needs.

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This innovative technology will be highly useful across various fields, including filmmaking, animation, education and product design. But before we get carried away, let’s check out Sora’s capabilities and limitations.

Imagine describing a busy city with neon lights and varying characters, and Sora brings it to life in a 60-second video. Or picture a cat waking up its owner for breakfast – Sora can handle diverse scenes with complex elements and emotions. 

Its understanding of language allows it to interpret prompts accurately and create interesting characters, even within single videos.

While interesting, Sora isn’t without issues. Challenges lie in simulating complex physics, grasping cause-and-effect relationships, and maintaining spatial accuracy. Imagine a cookie disappearing after a bite, or animals magically appearing. The model can also struggle with precise event descriptions and camera movements.

Recognizing these limitations, OpenAI prioritizes safety measures. Red teamers, experts in misinformation and bias, are rigorously testing the model. Detection tools like classifiers are being developed to identify Sora-generated content.

Existing safety methods for DALL-E 3, like text and image classifiers, are also being applied. OpenAI actively engages with policymakers, educators, and artists to understand concerns and explore positive use cases.