OpenAI’s Sora app for AI videos is a viral hit, even though it is currently invite-only and limited to users in the United States and Canada at launch. On its first day, Sora saw 56,000 downloads and is now ranked as the number three top overall app on the U.S. App Store, according to new data from app intelligence provider Appfigures. The firm estimates that the Sora iOS app had a total of 164,000 installs during its first two days, September 30th and October 1st.
This day-one performance puts Sora’s debut ahead of other major AI app launches, including Anthropic’s Claude and Microsoft’s Copilot, and places it on par with the launch of xAI’s Grok. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s own ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini had somewhat stronger iOS app launches, with each reaching at least 80,000 downloads on their first days.
Since Sora is still invite-only, this may not be the fairest comparison. It is possible the new video app could have attracted even more installs if it were open to all users. Despite this restriction, it is a fairly strong showing for the new release, indicating significant consumer demand for AI video tools that offer a social networking-like experience. This consumer focus has reportedly caused some internal debate at OpenAI, where some staff would prefer the company concentrate on solving harder problems that benefit humanity.
To compare Sora’s early success to other AI apps accurately, Appfigures conducted an analysis that only considered the other apps’ U.S. and Canadian downloads. This was necessary because the various AI apps on the market have pursued different launch strategies. For instance, ChatGPT initially launched on iOS limited to U.S. users, while Grok limited its iOS-only release to the U.S., Australia, and India. Anthropic did not indicate any geographic restrictions when it first brought its Claude app to iOS last year.
For a more direct comparison, Appfigures focused only on each app’s U.S. downloads, plus those in Canada if the app was available there at launch. This analysis found that ChatGPT and Gemini had larger launches than Sora, with 81,000 and 80,000 day-one iOS downloads respectively. Sora tied with Grok for day-one installs at 56,000. It easily beat out the launches from Claude, which had 21,000 day-one downloads, and Copilot, which saw only 7,000.
Sora also performed well on the U.S. App Store’s top charts, becoming the number three overall top app by its second day. For comparison, ChatGPT reached number one on its second day, while Grok was number four, Gemini was number six, Copilot was number nineteen, and Claude was number seventy-eight.