OpenAI Launches Sora – The AI Video Tool That Will Leave You Speechless

OpenAI has officially launched Sora, a new text-to-video generation tool, as part of Day 3 of its 12 Days of Product Announcements event. Announced on December 9, 2024, Sora allows users to generate short, dynamic videos—up to 20 seconds in length—at resolutions as high as 1080p, all from simple text prompts. This early release highlights OpenAI’s first significant step into AI-powered video creation.

Currently, Sora is available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers, who can access it at Sora.com at no additional cost. However, the tool is not yet available in the EU, UK, or Switzerland, with OpenAI planning to expand access in the coming months.

Sora also comes with editing features like remixing, re-cutting, and storyboarding, allowing users to modify and organize videos for more creative control. While still early in development, OpenAI describes Sora as the “GPT-1 for video,” emphasizing its potential to evolve as a foundation for AI systems that simulate and understand reality.

Sora’s Capabilities and Features

At its core, Sora transforms text into dynamic, moving visuals. Users can prompt Sora with descriptive commands—whether for realistic landscapes, abstract visuals, or animations—and receive AI-generated videos within minutes. OpenAI has also introduced an improved version called Sora Turbo, which is faster than earlier iterations showcased earlier this year.

The platform stands out for its ability to remix and edit existing content. Users can upload images or previously generated videos and modify them with new instructions. For instance, a video of a serene house on a cliff can be enhanced to include a golf course in the background, all through a simple remix prompt.

To provide more control, OpenAI has added a Storyboard feature, allowing users to string together multiple prompts into cohesive video sequences. This feature is particularly useful for creating longer videos or orchestrating multiple actions that would otherwise be challenging to generate in a single command.

The interface is designed for both inspiration and collaboration. A curated feed highlights featured creations from the community, allowing users to see the prompts used and remix videos for their own purposes. OpenAI encourages this as a learning tool, helping creators refine their prompting skills and discover what works best.

Early Access and Subscription Model

Sora is currently available only to users with ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscriptions. Plus subscribers can generate up to 50 videos per month at lower resolutions, while Pro users gain access to higher limits, longer video durations, and full 1080p quality. For now, Sora remains a standalone product separate from ChatGPT, accessible via Sora.com.

However, the tool is not yet available in the European Union, UK, or Switzerland, adding to an ongoing debate over regional access to emerging technologies. OpenAI has cited plans to expand availability and introduce tailored pricing models for enterprise users in the near future.

What Sora Gets Right—and What It Doesn’t

Sora represents a significant step forward in AI video generation, but it remains far from perfect. Much like GPT models’ early struggles with language accuracy, Sora struggles with video physics and continuity—challenges inherent to creating a believable moving scene.

In videos where humans or animals walk, for example, Sora often misaligns their limbs, causing legs to swap awkwardly. Objects lack permanence; they can disappear or reappear mid-shot without reason. Fluid dynamics, however, seem to be an unexpected strength—videos of water, waves, or even fire often appear surprisingly realistic.

For now, Sora excels in stylized or abstract content. Stop-motion animations, cartoon visuals, and surreal landscapes allow its imperfections to appear intentional, even artistic. Creators looking to produce title slides, animations, or atmospheric content will find Sora particularly compelling.

In a review video, tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee shared his mixed impressions after experimenting with Sora. While praising its creative flexibility, he highlighted its limitations in handling physics and realism. “It’s impressive that it’s AI-generated video, but you can tell pretty quickly,” he noted, pointing out the tool’s inability to seamlessly mimic real-world behavior.

List of known problems and areas where Sora is struggling:

1. Physics and Object Permanence
   • Sora struggles with realistic physics, especially for complex movements. For example, objects may pass through one another, disappear, or reappear unnaturally.
   • Human and animal movement, particularly involving legs, often looks anatomically incorrect, with frequent “swapping” of front and back legs.
2. Resolution and Speed
   • High-resolution videos (e.g., 1080p) take significantly longer to generate than lower-quality clips.
   • The processing time will likely increase as more users gain access to the platform.
3. AI-Generated Artifacts
   • Inconsistent details, unrealistic animations, and artifacts (e.g., distorted text or limbs) remain common in photorealistic videos.
   • Sora performs better with abstract, cartoon, or stop-motion styles, where irregularities can appear artistic rather than flawed.

Safety, Ethics, and Guardrails

With AI-generated video comes the inevitable question of misuse, and OpenAI is taking a cautious approach to deployment. Every Sora-generated video includes C2PA metadata to verify its AI origins, alongside visible watermarks to provide transparency.

The platform blocks attempts to generate harmful or unethical content, including depictions of real people, copyrighted materials, and explicit themes. Public figures, recognizable logos, and underage subjects are automatically flagged and rejected. OpenAI has also implemented strict moderation standards for uploaded content and continues to refine safeguards against misuse.

This focus on safety extends to OpenAI’s collaboration with red-team experts, who rigorously tested Sora to identify potential risks. The company acknowledges that flaws remain but hopes its current safeguards provide a foundation for responsible use as the technology evolves.

An Early Look at the Future

While Sora is still in its infancy, it signals a transformative shift for AI-driven creativity. The tool’s ability to produce videos with minimal input will undoubtedly disrupt traditional video production workflows, much as tools like DALL·E have done for image creation.

For now, Sora is best suited for experimental content—abstract videos, artistic animations, and short-form sequences that embrace its stylistic quirks. As OpenAI continues refining the model, its applications will likely expand into more polished and professional domains.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has urged users to see this as just the beginning. “This is early—think of it like GPT-1 for video—but I already think the feed is so compelling,” he said. If history is any indicator, today’s version of Sora represents only a fraction of what it could achieve in the near future.

For creators, businesses, and curious users, Sora opens up new ways to experiment, collaborate, and tell stories—flawed but full of potential. As AI video tools evolve, the line between imagination and creation continues to blur.