OpenAI has doubled down on its ambitions in generative AI, specifically in video. On September 30, 2025, the company unveiled Sora 2, its next-generation audio and video model, alongside a brand new social app — Sora — built to enable users to create, share, and remix AI-generated clips in a TikTok-style feed.

Below, we break down what Sora 2 offers, explain how the Sora app works, and outline the opportunities and risks it presents.

What Is Sora 2? The Evolution of OpenAI’s Video Model

From Sora to Sora 2

OpenAI’s original Sora model, released in December 2024, allowed users to generate short video clips from text prompts with moderate realism, but with limitations in physics, consistency, and synchronized audio.

Sora 2 represents a significant leap forward, focusing on:

• Physical realism and temporal consistency: better modeling of collisions, momentum, buoyancy, gravity, and interactions so that actions appear natural.
  
• Synchronized audio and dialogue: speech, ambient sound, and effects are more closely aligned to visual motion.
  
• Steerability and stylistic control: users can specify camera moves, shot types, tempo, and visual style.
  
• Multi-shot consistency and scene coherence: characters, lighting, and dynamics remain stable across shots, reducing abrupt transitions.
  

According to OpenAI, Sora 2 “improves compliance with the laws of physics and temporal consistency.” For example, when a basketball player misses a shot, the ball bounces realistically off the rim rather than appearing inside the basket.

The Sora App: A TikTok-Style Layer over AI Video

The Sora app is the public-facing platform that makes Sora 2 accessible to creators and viewers in a familiar vertical video format.

Key Features

Vertical swipe feed
The app is designed with a TikTok-like interface: vertical videos, swipe navigation, and a personalized feed algorithm based on user activity, location, post interaction, and optionally ChatGPT history.

Cameos (self-insertion)
Users can submit a one-time verified video and audio recording of themselves. Once approved, they can authorize friends to include their likeness in generated videos. The system notifies users whenever their likeness is used, and co-ownership rules allow them to revoke access at any time.

Remix and collaboration tools
Users can remix trending videos or contribute elements such as scenes, audio, or styles to collaborative trends.

Content length and format

• Current clips are limited to 10 seconds.
  
• No uploads from the camera roll are supported; all content must be generated within the app.
  
• Audio is integrated, allowing prompts with speech or typed instructions to generate matching sound design.
  

Access and pricing

• The app launches first on iOS, invitation-only, starting in the United States and Canada. Global expansion is planned.
  
• Basic use is free, with extra charges for additional generations during high demand.
  
• ChatGPT Pro subscribers gain access to Sora 2 Pro without an invitation.
  

Why Sora 2 and the Sora App Matter

Creative opportunities

• Lower barrier to video creation: no need for cameras or editing software, just a prompt.
  
• New storytelling formats: cinematic scenes, music videos, or surreal crossovers are now within reach.
  
• Prompt engineering becomes a creative skill.
  
• Social virality: the remix and cameo features encourage collaborative trends.
  

Risks and challenges

• Misuse of likenesses: despite safeguards, a risk of deepfakes, impersonation, and non-consensual content remains.
  
• Copyright disputes: questions remain about training data and whether copyrighted works were included.
  
• Content moderation: OpenAI bans impersonations of public figures and explicit material, but enforcement may face challenges.
  
• Disinformation: realistic AI-generated clips could make it harder to distinguish between genuine and artificial media.
  

Use Cases and Early Demos

To showcase improvements, OpenAI released clips of beach volleyball, skateboarding, and diving into a pool, highlighting more natural motion and synchronized audio. Other demos include gymnastic routines, paddleboard tricks with buoyancy modeling, and figure skating with consistent character motion.

Users report fewer visual glitches, smoother frame transitions, and more natural interactions compared to the original Sora.

OpenAI’s launch of Sora 2 and the Sora app marks a significant milestone in AI video generation. By combining technical improvements in physics, sound, and consistency with a social media layer, OpenAI is moving generative video closer to mainstream use.

The challenge will be balancing creativity with ethics, ensuring that safety and privacy measures keep pace with the growing realism of AI-generated content.

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OpenAI is preparing to enter the e-commerce space more directly by embedding a full checkout experience within ChatGPT. The company plans to take a commission on each transaction generated through the platform, enabling users to discover and purchase products without leaving the chat interface.

A Commission System Built Into ChatGPT

According to recent reports, OpenAI aims to allow merchants to sell products directly through ChatGPT, collecting a small commission per sale. CEO Sam Altman has stated that the company is exploring a model that applies a 2% affiliate commission when users complete purchases after using ChatGPT’s product discovery tools, such as the Deep Research feature.

Although the payment infrastructure is still in development, OpenAI has reportedly shared prototypes with select partners and is negotiating financial terms with key stakeholders. The commission model represents a new monetization avenue for OpenAI, particularly as it seeks to generate revenue from users who do not subscribe to ChatGPT Plus or enterprise plans.

OpenAI and Shopify: A Strategic Partnership with Growing Tension

The April Collaboration

In April 2025, OpenAI announced a formal partnership with Shopify to co-develop conversational commerce features. This collaboration leverages Shopify’s technical infrastructure—which supports over 2.6 million stores in the U.S.—to enable product discovery and potentially full checkouts through ChatGPT.

New Restrictions from Shopify

Despite the partnership, friction has emerged. Shopify recently updated its robots.txt code to block fully automated agents from making purchases on behalf of users without final human review. This decision reflects growing concern about the rise of AI-powered “buy-for-me” tools and the potential risks they pose to merchant control and consumer trust.

Shopify’s move illustrates a broader industry tension: enabling innovation while preserving platform integrity. Although automated scraping and full agent transactions are restricted, Shopify continues to support legitimate integrations that comply with its policies, such as those using its official Checkout Kit.

Monetizing ChatGPT Beyond Subscriptions

Rising Revenues, Persistent Losses

OpenAI has rapidly increased its annualized revenue run rate, reaching approximately $10 billion as of mid-2025, nearly double its rate from December 2024. The company aims to achieve $12.7 billion in total revenue by year-end.

However, this growth has not eliminated financial losses. OpenAI reportedly lost $5 billion in 2024, underscoring the importance of diversifying its revenue streams. The new commission system on e-commerce transactions is part of a broader push to strengthen the business model and move closer to profitability.

Competing with Tech Giants

This strategic shift also positions OpenAI as a potential challenger to established players, such as Google and Amazon. By enabling product discovery and direct purchases within a conversational interface, ChatGPT poses a threat to disrupt how consumers search for and purchase products online. The result could be a significant change in internet shopping behavior.

The Rise of AIO: Artificial Intelligence Optimization

As generative AI systems begin to influence purchasing decisions, a new form of SEO is emerging: Artificial Intelligence Optimization (AIO). Merchants and marketers are now exploring how to tailor their product content for AI-driven recommendation engines, such as ChatGPT, to secure visibility within these increasingly influential platforms.

This development could reshape the e-commerce marketing landscape, with a shift from traditional search engine rankings to AI-curated results.

Risks and Regulations in AI-Powered Commerce

The potential for AI agents to complete transactions autonomously raises questions about consumer safety, privacy, and regulatory compliance. Recent research highlights that a majority of consumers are concerned about how AI tools collect data, make decisions, and represent their interests during online shopping.

Moreover, as OpenAI and partners develop these new capabilities, they must consider how to ensure transparency, user control, and fair business practices. The balance between innovation and accountability will be crucial for the widespread adoption of this approach.

Implications for Key Stakeholders

Consumers

Users may benefit from faster product discovery and simplified checkout experiences. However, they must also contend with potential privacy concerns and reduced transparency around how recommendations are generated.

Merchants

Sellers gain a new channel to reach customers directly within ChatGPT, potentially increasing exposure and sales. At the same time, they face new challenges related to optimization, commission fees, and potential disintermediation from their platforms.

E-Commerce Platforms

For companies like Shopify, this trend presents both opportunities and risks. On one hand, deeper integration with AI platforms may increase usage of their payment infrastructure. On the other, it may reduce demand for their merchant services if transactions begin shifting to external interfaces like ChatGPT.

OpenAI

By embedding commerce into ChatGPT, OpenAI can tap into a new source of revenue and offer a more engaging user experience. However, it must navigate evolving user expectations, merchant partnerships, and regulatory frameworks, all while maintaining trust in its AI systems.

Outlook: A New Era of Conversational Commerce

With the introduction of in-chat shopping and affiliate commissions, OpenAI is taking a bold step toward transforming ChatGPT into a full-fledged e-commerce interface. While still in development, this functionality signals the arrival of a new era where natural language conversations could become the primary interface for both product discovery and purchase.

As the ecosystem matures, merchants, marketers, platforms, and consumers will need to adapt. If OpenAI executes effectively—and in collaboration with trusted partners like Shopify—conversational commerce may soon become a standard part of the digital retail experience.

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OpenAI has made an unexpected move by signing an agreement with Google Cloud to access its powerful computing infrastructure. This marks a significant shift that could reshape its long-standing partnership with Microsoft, its main investor and strategic ally.

OpenAI Taps into Google Cloud’s Computing Power

According to Reuters, OpenAI will now be able to train and run its advanced AI models using Google Cloud’s infrastructure, particularly benefiting from the tech giant's robust capabilities based in Mountain View. While the specific terms of the deal have not been officially disclosed, insider sources claim the agreement was finalized weeks ago.

This development places Google Cloud in a high-stakes position, as OpenAI is one of the most influential players in the artificial intelligence industry. For Google, the partnership could bring both prestige and significant consumption-based revenue.

What This Means for Microsoft: Independence or Tension?

Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, providing its Azure cloud as a core platform for the startup’s operations. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's decision to also utilize Google’s infrastructure is already being interpreted as a sign of technological diversification—or possibly strategic independence.

The relationship between the two companies has become increasingly nuanced. After Altman's brief dismissal and reinstatement in late 2023, Microsoft took measures to shield itself from governance instability at OpenAI. One notable step was hiring DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman to lead its in-house AI initiatives, signaling a parallel path of AI development and reducing overdependence on its partner.

Behind the Scenes: Friction and Flexibility

Recent reports have also highlighted internal tensions between OpenAI and Microsoft. These include disagreements about access to proprietary AI models and frustrations over limited computing resources, which OpenAI has cited as a key bottleneck in pursuing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

However, this new collaboration with Google doesn't necessarily mean a complete fallout with Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft has previously shown a degree of flexibility, permitting OpenAI to work with Oracle infrastructure running Microsoft software. This precedent hints at a broader, more modular cloud strategy allowing multi-cloud scalability while retaining core collaboration.

Google Cloud Gains a Strategic Customer

While the full scope of the OpenAI-Google deal remains unclear, analysts suggest that Google Cloud stands to benefit the most in the short term. Landing a high-profile, compute-intensive customer like OpenAI could enhance its competitive positioning against AWS and Azure in the cloud wars.

Yet questions remain:

• Will this partnership evolve into a deeper alliance?
• Or is it a tactical workaround to meet OpenAI’s rising demand for GPU and TPU access?

The Future of AI Infrastructure is Multi-Cloud

This new agreement reflects a broader trend in the AI ecosystem: the growing importance of cloud infrastructure as a competitive edge. As AI models become more sophisticated and resource-intensive, organizations like OpenAI seek to diversify their support systems to ensure scalability and resilience.

In a landscape where infrastructure is as critical as algorithms, OpenAI's move signals that even deep partnerships like the one with Microsoft are subject to strategic recalibration.

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Amazon is developing a new artificial intelligence (AI) model with advanced reasoning capabilities in an apparent attempt to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT.

According to a report published by Business Insider, the launch of this technology is scheduled for June. It will be part of the Nova AI family, a series of generative AI solutions developed by the tech giant.

According to sources close to the project, Amazon intends for its new model to adopt a “hybrid reasoning” concept, enabling it to provide quick answers while developing more complex and deeper thinking.

This approach represents a significant advance in artificial intelligence, where reasoning models stand out for their ability to solve more demanding problems, albeit slower than conventional systems.

Nova AI aims at a low-cost solution

So far, Amazon has not officially confirmed this information, but the progress in this field is unsurprising. The company has invested heavily in its AI technology, and the development of the Nova model reflects this commitment.

One outstanding advantage of these models is their low cost. According to information previously released by the company, Nova models are at least 75% cheaper than other third-party solutions available on the AI Bedrock platform.

With this new development, Amazon aims to position itself among the top five providers of AI models in terms of performance. The project is being led by the company's artificial general intelligence (AGI) team, under the direction of scientist Rohit Prasad.

At a time when AI is consolidating itself as one of the most competitive sectors in technology, the launch of this model could further strengthen Amazon's position as one of the leading players in this field. Now we can only wait for official confirmation and observe this new system's impact on the market.

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OpenAI, the ChatGPT creator, wants to achieve a valuation of $100 billion during its next investment round in 2024. 

Currently, the company is still in preliminary talks, with no information yet on terms, final value and/or timing. If this amount is achieved, the company led by Sam Altman would become the second most valuable startup in the United States, behind Elon Musk's SpaceX.

On the other hand, OpenAI is about to complete an IPO in early January. This would allow its employees to sell their shares, valued at $86 billion (78,006 million euros). This deal is led by Thrive Capital, which is receiving greater demand from investors than availability.

OpenAI is currently an extremely desirable company, and there is no doubt about it. This 2023 has been a reflection of the bet on artificial intelligence and how the launch of ChatGPT has proved to be a real revolution in this field. 

So far, Microsoft has allocated 11,791 million euros to the project. For this reason, giants such as Amazon or Alphabet are looking for a competitor to match.

ChatGPT isn’t OpenAI only profitable technology 

ChatGPT and GPT-4 have garnered much attention, but OpenAI has other text-related products. GPT-3, the previous flagship LLM, is a general text completion model: start a sentence and watch GPT-3 finish it for you. 

It sounds simple, but GPT-3 produces much more advanced text than any previous LLM. In addition, it can be tailored to specific examples, which is impossible with ChatGPT and GPT-4.

OpenAI is also working alongside G42 with the goal of raising funds for a new chip company. It is not yet clear whether the funding for the two projects is related, but for now, OpenAI expects to raise between $8 billion and $10 billion (€7.256 - €9.07 billion) from G42.

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OpenAI - the company that created ChatGPT - aims for a valuation of up to $90 billion, specifically, according to The Wall Street Journal. Currently, the firm is seeking investors for a stock placement in which it sets a benchmark valuation between $80 billion and $90 billion.

The newspaper underlines that the shares to be placed would come from those held by OpenAI employees. This would point to significant benefits for Microsoft, which controls 49% of the capital and agreed to an investment in OpenAI last January with a reference valuation of around $30 billion.

According to TWSJ, the company has conveyed to potential investors that it expects to generate revenues of about $1 billion this 2023 and several billion in 2024.

The stock sale deal would amount to several hundred million dollars from minority employee stakes. The valuation would make OpenAI one of the most valuable unlisted technology companies in the world.

OpenAI value was raised by Microsoft 

Recently Microsoft made a  “multiyear, multibillion-dollar” investment in OpenAI valued at over $10 billion. 

Microsoft had already invested more than $3 billion in OpenAI, and the new deal reinforced Microsoft's public stand regarding AI implementation. So far, the company created by Bill Gates truly believes that AI companions and AI tools will be an integral part of our near future. 

In fact, in this same spirit, Microsoft has recently announced the launch of the Copilot AI ecosystem. A full-fledged network of solutions all controlled by the same AI assistant - the eponymous Copilot. The first of these solutions was already presented under the name of Microsoft 365 Chat, aiming at providing support to Microsoft suite users.

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OpenAI introduces a Canva plug-in for its popular chatbot, ChatGPT. This integration seeks to improve how users generate images by offering a simplified and easy-to-use approach to digital design.

Previously, using Canva with ChatGPT required manual work, but with the new plug-in, users can generate visualizations with just a few clicks. This makes the design process more efficient.

To access this feature, users must launch ChatGPT in their browser and look for the 'Add-on Store' in the add-on section. Once installed, Canva must be selected from the add-ons section in the main chatbot window. 

ChatGPT AI will help create faster, more accurate images 

In the prompts box, it will be possible to describe the visualization we want to create using prompts such as, "I'm an AI enthusiast active on Twitter. Create a banner for my account." This action generates a list of images from which users can select their preferred option, edit it in Canva, and download it directly. 

This integration is exclusive to ChatGPT Plus subscribers, who pay a monthly fee of $20. In addition to the Canva add-on, users will be able to gain access to the updated GPT-4 large language model, which is proficient in creating long-form content and accepting images as input.

The ‘Anti-Canva’ AI 

Microsoft Design is an online application that allows users to create quick and instant designs based on AI, and it is Microsoft ‘Anti-Canva’ app. The idea is to create the ultimate design tool that won’t require any design knowledge to use it.

The way to use it is straightforward and supports Spanish, French, Italian, and many other languages. We simply enter a "prompt," which describes the type of image we want, how we want it, and the idea we have in our head. The more descriptive this message is, the easier it will be for the AI to understand us and adapt to our tastes and requests. 

Obviously, if we ask for something very generic, it will be less interesting. The good thing is that after the work of the AI, we can customize this creation to our liking through a simple system of adjustments.

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