OpenAI's Sora officially hits No. 1 on Apple's App Store (www.businessinsider.com)

OpenAI’s new video-generation app Sora climbed to No. 1 on Apple’s App Store within days of its invite-only release, outselling competitors including Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s own ChatGPT. The app (with invite codes reportedly reselling online) generates short, 10-second videos from text prompts and “Cameos” that can feature users or friends with permission. Under the hood Sora runs the new Sora 2 audio‑video generation model — an upgrade over the earlier ChatGPT-integrated model — which OpenAI says produces more realistic imagery and tighter audio–video synchronization. The ascent underscores strong consumer demand for multimodal generative AI and accelerates the race to bring convincing video synthesis to mainstream users. For the AI/ML community, Sora 2’s reported improvements in visual fidelity and sync are notable technical advances, but the launch also spotlights urgent legal and ethical challenges: OpenAI reportedly told studios it would default to using existing characters unless rights holders opted out, raising copyright and labor questions, while the app’s ability to produce believable likenesses amplifies deepfake and consent concerns. Sora’s rapid popularity signals both new creative possibilities for content production and the immediate need for technical safeguards, provenance tools, and updated policy frameworks.