OPENAI
From zero to App Store hero
OpenAI’s new video app Sora has had a huge first week.
Data from Appfigures shows it reached 627,000 iOS downloads in seven days - more than ChatGPT’s 606,000 when it first launched.
OpenAI’s head of Sora, Bill Peebles, later said the app actually hit 1 million downloads in under five days, making it faster growing than ChatGPT’s app launch.
That’s impressive, considering Sora is currently invite-only and only available on iOS.
The app launched in the U.S. and Canada, but most downloads came from the U.S. (about 96%).
In brief:
Sora hit 1M downloads in 5 days, faster than ChatGPT.
Invite-only and iOS-only, but still reached No. 1 on the App Store.
Viral AI videos are driving massive interest (and some controversy).
Invite-only? More like viral-only
On its first day, Sora got 56,000 downloads and quickly jumped to No. 3 on the App Store, then hit No. 1 by 3 October.
It also outperformed other major AI app launches like Anthropic’s Claude, Microsoft’s Copilot, and xAI’s Grok.
Online, Sora videos made with the new Sora 2 model have gone viral, some of them realistic enough to spark debate about deepfakes, especially those showing celebrities or deceased people.
Appfigures says daily downloads peaked at 107,800 on 1 October and have stayed steady since, even with limited access.
Sora didn’t just drop; it descended from the cloud with a vengeance.