OpenAI has announced that its AI short-generation app, Sora, will now be available to Android users. The AI-powered social media app was launched by OpenAI during the Sora 2 model launch in September and had so far only been available to iPhone users.
The San Francisco-based AI startup announced on Tuesday that it was bringing the Sora app to the Google Play Store for users in the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Unfortunately, Sora isn’t currently available to users in India, and OpenAI hasn’t given a timeline for when the popular app is coming to its second biggest market.
Sora was downloaded 1 million times in less than 5 days after its debut and also topped the App Store rankings for almost three weeks. Even today, the app holds the fifth spot on the Apple App Store rankings, behind the likes of ChatGPT and Gemini.
How does the Sora app work?
The popular app allows users to create up to 60-second videos from text or images with auto-generated soundtracks, taking advantage of the new Sora 2 model. The Android app comes with all the features that are on its iOS counterpart, including the ability to add ‘cameos.’
Users can either use the Cameos feature to generate videos of themselves performing different activities or even involve their friends in the AI-generated content.
The app also comes with features like remixing existing videos, adding styles, and sharing the generated videos to other social media platforms directly.
The free-tier users of the Sora app get basic video generations, while ChatGPT Plus users get the option to unlock longer videos along with faster processing times.
The popular app has led to increasing concerns being raised about deepfakes and copyright protection. After the initial launch of the app, OpenAI had to pause video generations of Martin Luther King Jr. after a request from the King estate, after some users created disrespectful and vulgar deepfakes of the civil rights leader.
OpenAI had also initially implemented an ‘opt-out’ policy for the app, meaning that copyrighted content could be used unless rights holders specifically asked for its removal. However, the company has since reversed course after intense backlash and is now implementing an ‘opt-in’ system.
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