Fresh off a $6.6 billion share sale that made it the world's most valuable private company, OpenAI's TikTok-style video app, powered by its new artificial intelligence model, Sora 2, is going viral.
Despite the gated release that requires an invite code, the video creation tool has already shot to the number three spot on Apple 's App Store and sparked a wave of deepfakes, including a viral clip of CEO Sam Altman shoplifting GPUs.
Internally, the rollout has reignited a long-running debate inside OpenAI about how to balance safety with creative freedom.
A person familiar with internal strategy at the company said leadership views strict guardrails as essential, but also worries about stifling creativity or being perceived as censoring too much.
That tension remains unresolved.
OpenAI's culture has long favored speed, often shipping new tools ahead of rivals and letting the public adapt in real time.
One former employee, who asked not to be named to discuss internal matters, told CNBC that during their tenure, OpenAI leadership had a pattern of prioritizing fast launches. That strategy was on full display after China's DeepSeek released a powerful model at the end of last year that was cheaper and faster to build than anything out of Silicon Valley.
OpenAI responded within weeks, debuting two new models in what was widely viewed as a defensive move to preserve its lead.
But OpenAI has a key advantage: Its growing institutional muscle.
Once a scrappy research lab in San Francisco's Mission District, the company has since become more structured, enabling it to spin up cross-functional teams more quickly and accelerate the development and deployment cycles for products like Sora.
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