Seventy-two hours ago, OpenAI launched Sora, an invite-only app that has already climbed to the top of Apple’s App Store. In just three days, it’s changed how I—and a lot of others—spend time online. Speaking personally, I’ve logged more hours inside Sora this week than I’ve spent on TikTok across my entire life. More than Instagram in the past year, too.
That kind of time shift is telling. This isn’t just novelty; it feels like a new center of gravity for how people will create and consume video.
Why Sora Feels Different
The comparisons to ChatGPT’s launch are everywhere, and they’re fair. Back then—even inside OpenAI—we didn’t know what ChatGPT would become. Two and a half years later, Sora is giving off that same energy.
A few things make it stand out:
- Quality and speed. Videos take a couple minutes to generate, but the fidelity is astonishing. And while you’re waiting, you’re scrolling through other clips that look just as good. The downtime becomes part of the experience.
- Cameo mode. You can generate a surprisingly accurate likeness of yourself—or your friends—and drop it straight into a scene. That’s where the line between “app” and “platform” gets blurry. It’s not just video generation; it’s collaborative, personal storytelling.
- Realism leap. A year ago we were still laughing about six-fingered hands and dead eyes. That’s gone. Now I’ve made videos with friends where the only giveaway that it’s AI is the absurd situation I dropped them into.
It’s addictive, but not in the doom-loop way TikTok or Instagram can be. It’s fun, it’s experimental, and it feels generative in the truest sense.
Early Cultural Ripples
Two hours a day on Sora is time I’d usually spend on X or YouTube. I’m not alone in that. If this pattern scales, the impact on attention economies could be seismic.
There are other cultural signals worth noticing:
- Copyright gray zones. OpenAI is taking a loose approach to users bringing in recognizable IP. Most of it is parody, which may hold up legally—but we’re headed for court fights eventually. For now, the freedom is fueling creativity and virality.
- Leadership example. Sam Altman has openly made his likeness available for anyone to use. Two days in, the feed was dominated by Sam jokes—some affectionate, some ruthless. Now the ratio is evening out as people explore broader ideas. Credit to him for leaning in. It sends a clear message: in this new world, resistance is futile. Better to embrace it.
The Road Ahead
Right now, Sora caps out at 10-second clips. Longer storyboards, like what’s available on the web version, are on the horizon. Even stretching to 60 seconds would unlock a whole new layer of storytelling—and make the app even stickier.
The economics will matter, too. Creation is costlier than consumption. Will most people become makers, or will they scroll through an endless feed of a creative minority? That ratio could define whether Sora feels like TikTok, YouTube, or something entirely new.
A Seismic Moment
Some argue Sora will flame out as novelty. I don’t buy it. I’ve already found myself laughing at sketches and clever scenarios that could’ve easily been shot as live action but were instead spun up in minutes with AI.
This feels less like a toy and more like the early days of YouTube—when copyright scuffles, weird experiments, and new voices collided to form something culture couldn’t ignore.
Sora is that kind of moment. A hinge in how media is made, shared, and consumed. We may look back on this launch the same way we look back on ChatGPT: as the point where the future quietly became the present.
Beyond the App: The Video Ecosystem Shake-Up
The story here isn’t just that Sora is an addictive new app. It’s that it resets the playing field for the entire video ecosystem.
In the last two years, investors poured money into startups promising AI-powered avatars, synthetic presenters, and customizable video content. Many of those companies were built around the assumption that they had some technical moat OpenAI hadn’t crossed yet.
That moat is gone.
Sora’s launch has already leapfrogged what dozens of startups have been pitching as their core advantage. Entire business models—some built around custom avatars, others around slow, expensive rendering pipelines—are now in jeopardy. What looked like a defensible niche last month has suddenly become a commodity feature in a free mobile app.
For anyone who’s been watching OpenAI closely, this outcome isn’t shocking. The timing might be earlier than expected, but the direction of travel was clear. Generative video was never going to stay in the hands of boutique shops for long. Now it’s mainstream, and the fallout for the rest of the ecosystem is going to be brutal.
@AndrewMayne 