OpenAI’s Sora AI Text-to-Video Generator Now Available to Everyone

General Availability and Early Feedback

OpenAI’s highly-anticipated AI text-to-video generator, Sora, will become available to everyone today. In a video posted on Monday, Marques Brownlee confirmed its imminent release and detailed his experience using Sora over the past few weeks, calling the results "horrifying and inspiring at the same time."

Background and Early Access

OpenAI first revealed Sora in February but only made the tool available to a select number of visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to start.

Features and Functionality

Brownlee shows how Sora can convert your text prompt into a video, which you can then customize with additional text prompts as part of its "remix" tool. You can also use Sora to transform a photo into a video, as well as use its storyboard feature to "string together" several text prompts that Sora will attempt to blend into cohesive scenes.

Challenges and Limitations

During his video, Brownlee points out that Sora currently struggles with generating realistic physics and often shows objects that disappear or pass through each other. He also found that Sora often rejects prompts that include public figures and copyrighted characters.

Conclusion

Sora’s release marks an exciting step in the development of AI-powered creative tools. While it still has its limitations, the early feedback from users like Marques Brownlee suggests that Sora has the potential to be a game-changer for content creators.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Sora?
A: Sora is an AI text-to-video generator developed by OpenAI.

Q: Who is eligible to use Sora?
A: Sora is available to everyone, following its general release.

Q: How does Sora work?
A: Sora converts text prompts into videos, allowing users to customize their content with additional text prompts using the "remix" tool, or transform photos into videos, or use its storyboard feature to blend multiple text prompts into cohesive scenes.

Q: What are the current limitations of Sora?
A: Sora struggles with generating realistic physics, often shows objects that disappear or pass through each other, and rejects prompts that include public figures and copyrighted characters.

Generative AI Apps: Separating the Good from the Bad

There’s endless hype around generative AI this year, and app developers have clearly been paying attention. AI-focused tools are blowing up Apple’s App Store charts in almost every category, occupying top 10 rankings across education, productivity, and photo editing. Opportunities are particularly rife for free graphics and design apps, a category that’s positively saturated with AI content creation tools.

The State of AI Tools

But quantity doesn’t mean quality — and a great many of these apps are bewilderingly bad. I’ve been using some of the most popular offerings to understand the state of AI tools as we head into 2025. And for every serious attempt to make AI useful, there seem to be several more designed to cash in on the hype: quietly paywalling features they advertise behind pricey subscriptions and greatly misrepresenting the results that users can achieve, if the app even works at all.

HUBX’s AI Apps

Around half of the App Store’s top 10 graphics and design apps have "AI" in the name, and three of them are all made by the same company — HUBX, an app developer founded in 2022 that’s based in Turkey. One of its apps, DaVinci AI, is advertised as an AI image generator with some photo editing features. Almost every tool is locked behind a $30 annual (or $5 weekly) subscription fee, and the free trial only unlocks a subpar text-to-image feature that gives you a choice between using unspecified versions of Stable Diffusion and DALL-E AI models.

The Results

My prompt was simple — "a photorealistic dragon flying over a volcano" — but the results were full of errors like missing wings and weird perspectives. The images it produces are low-quality and resized or cropped incorrectly. In-app ads appear when you click pretty much any link. The UI is unpleasant to navigate. If you do pay for the full version, you can’t download any edited images without slapping an ugly watermark on it.

Other HUBX Apps

The other two high-ranking HUBX products I tested were just as lackluster: the Home AI "interior design" app spits out hallucination-riddled images of rooms that are barely usable even as concept plans, and the Tattoo AI app refused to work entirely. Both apps have the same feature paywalls and review pop-up reminders as DaVinci AI. The copy and pasted App Store version history notes across all HUBX products are also devoid of any details.

The Verdict

While all three apps feature a surprisingly large number of five-star reviews, the user feedback across social media and the App Store comments is overwhelmingly negative. A recurring complaint is that customer service is impossible to get ahold of. HUBX never responded to my requests for comment.

Conclusion

Apps that clearly advertise having AI features are highly attractive. According to Sensor Tower, four out of the top 10 most downloaded iOS graphics and design apps in the US so far this year have had "AI" somewhere in their title. That’s actually two fewer than last year, but the most popular apps are booming. Photoroom saw downloads increase by more than 160 percent since last year. Comparatively, Photoshop Express downloads on iOS — which also includes generative AI features — fell by 21 percent during the same period.

FAQs

Q: What is the purpose of generative AI apps?
A: Generative AI apps aim to use artificial intelligence to create content, such as images, videos, and music, that can be used for various purposes, including creative projects, marketing, and entertainment.

Q: Are all generative AI apps created equal?
A: No, not all generative AI apps are created equal. Some apps may be more effective and user-friendly than others, while some may be more focused on specific tasks or industries.

Q: What are some examples of good generative AI apps?
A: Some examples of good generative AI apps include Google’s Magic Editor, Adobe Photoshop, and Picsart AI, which provide specific tools for removing unwanted objects from photos or inserting new ones in specific places.

Q: What are some red flags to watch out for when using generative AI apps?
A: Some red flags to watch out for when using generative AI apps include apps that promise unrealistic results, apps that require you to pay for features that are not clearly advertised, and apps that have poor user reviews and feedback.

Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science, was recently named a co-recipient of the 2024 John Scott Award by the board of directors of City Trusts. This prestigious honor, steeped in historical significance, celebrates scientific innovation at the very location where American independence was signed in Philadelphia, a testament to the enduring connection between scientific progress and human potential.

The Scott Award, the first science award in America established to honor Benjamin Franklin’s scientific legacy, recognized Rus alongside professors Takeo Kanade from Carnegie Mellon University and Vijay Kumar from the University of Pennsylvania. The award acknowledged her robotics research that has fundamentally changed our understanding of the field, expanding the very notion of what a robot can be.

Rus’ work extends beyond traditional robotics, focusing on developing machine intelligence that makes sense of the physical world through explainable algorithms. Her research represents a profound vision: creating robots as helpful tools that extend human strength, precision, and reach — as collaborative partners that can solve real-world challenges.

In her speech, Rus reflected on her time as a graduate student, where she mused that the potential for intelligent machines lies in the synergy between the body and brain. “A robot’s capabilities are defined by its physical body and the intelligence that controls it. Over the past decades, I’ve dedicated my research to developing both the mechanical and cognitive systems of robots, working alongside brilliant students, collaborators, and friends who share this transformative vision,” she said.

Her projects illustrate this commitment. The MiniSurgeon is a tiny ingestible origami robot that can remove dangerous button batteries from children’s systems. Soft robotic creatures like fish and sea turtles enable unprecedented aquatic exploration. Modular robotic boats can self-assemble into bridges and platforms, demonstrating adaptive intelligence. More recently, she helped invent liquid neural networks, inspired by the elegantly simple neural system of a tiny worm. By designing algorithms that can operate with as few as 19 neurons, Rus has shown how machines can navigate complex environments with remarkable efficiency.

When asked about her most impactful work, Rus was unequivocal in saying it was not the metal robots, but the students and researchers she was able to support and mentor. This statement encapsulates her deeper mission: not just advancing technology, but nurturing the next generation of minds.

“The hardest problems in AI and robotics,” she says, “require long-term thinking and dedication. A robot must not only perceive the world but understand it, decide how to act, and navigate interactions with people and other robots.”

The John Scott Award celebrates not just individual achievement, but also where scientific exploration meets compassionate innovation — as evidenced by previous luminary winners including Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, the Wright brothers, Marie Curie, Guglielmo Marconi, and 20 additional Nobel Prize winners.