OpenAI confirmed that it will launch its long-awaited text-to-video model Sora before Christmas, alongside a model with more complex reasoning capabilities.
OpenAI is not planning to bulldoze quietly toward the end of the year. At a New York Times event, CEO Sam Altman announced a veritable shipsmas, starting today. OpenAI will launch new features, products or demos every day for the next 12 days. What appears on which day is still a surprise, but The Verge already knows a few announcements. The Christmas campaign will be available by livestream.
Sora
The most prominent announcement will be the public launch of Sora. OpenAI showed Sora, an LLM that can create a one-minute video based on text prompts, at the beginning of the year. A select test audience has since been allowed to use it. That was not without controversy, as some videographers leaked the model out of form of protest.
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The timing of Sora’s announcement is no coincidence. Google caught OpenAI up to speed by releasing its video generator Veo to Google Cloud customers as early as this week. Meanwhile, Meta has also announced a text-to-video model.
12 days of Christmas
OpenAI has other surprises in store. The mysterious announcements rekindle rumors about Orion, the model with complex reasoning capabilities. OpenAI has always denied that the model would be available this year, but it may still tip the scales.
Then again, other announcements are less useful, such as a new voice for ChatGPT Voice based on Santa Claus. Unless you’ve always wanted to hear ChatGPT say Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas .
Towards one billion
With new models and features, OpenAI wants to raise its clientele further. According to Altman, ChatGPT now has 300 million weekly users, but OpenAI is far from satisfied with that. The company is aiming for one billion users worldwide. By jumping on the bandwagon of AI agents, expanding its search engine and integrating with Apple Intelligence, the company hopes to reach that goal soon.
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OpenAI is in full transition from a nonprofit research organization to a commercial company. As a profitable company, it will be judged on number of users and revenue. Those who do not pay for ChatGPT may soon have to add advertising.
Not everyone is hot on Altman’s new direction. In fact, his former associate Elon Musk is actively trying to block the reform. As of Donald Trump ‘s inauguration, Musk will be at the controls of policy. This could make him a very formidable opponent for OpenAI.