Sora2, it's time for AI to help you make money.

True game - changers in innovation are often those who pioneer new frontiers in the "uncharted territory".

When OpenAI released the demonstration video of its new - generation AI video model Sora2, the entire tech circle was shaken. It can generate a video in just 10 seconds, with highly realistic physical logic and multi - shot transitions like those in a movie. Its capabilities are infinitely close to those of professional human creators.

Dongguan Securities stated in a subsequent research report that "the release of Sora2 and its accompanying social application marks the integration of AI video generation and social interaction. It is expected to reshape the content creation and distribution ecosystem and may usher in the ChatGPT moment for AI video generation."

This analogy precisely hits the nerve of the industry. Because ChatGPT is a representative of the "qualitative change" triggered by the "quantitative change" in artificial intelligence technology, marking a new height that large - scale machine - learning models, large - scale training data, and high - computing power can reach.

What's even more astonishing is that Sora2 is no longer just a simple video - generation tool but a complete revolution. Industries closely related to video, such as film and television dramas, social media, and e - commerce, will also undergo ecological reconstruction, and many business models will be reshaped.

For ordinary people, a more direct question is how Sora2 will change the way people make money?

01. Sora2: Creating a New Model for Overseas Business

On the fourth day after the Sora App was launched, it topped the free app list on the US Apple App Store, surpassing Gemini and ChatGPT. It can be said to have become an instant hit.

According to Appfigures' estimation, within just two days of its launch, the total downloads of the iOS version of Sora reached 164,000, with 56,000 downloads on the first day.

Caption: Screenshot of the App Store

The popularity of the Sora APP stems, on the one hand, from its two revolutionary AIGC social functions: Cameo and Remix.

The core working principle of Cameo is based on the world simulation models that OpenAI is building. Users only need to provide a simple video clip, and they can "transport" themselves or their friends to the Colosseum in ancient Rome, a future cyberpunk city, game scenes, or any imaginable scenario, and make them move and interact naturally.

Remix is a core interactive mechanism of the Sora App. When users see a video they like, they can click the Remix button to create a new video based on it. For example, when seeing a video of Iron Man and Spider - Man, users can input new prompts, such as "integrate my photo into it". Sora will then generate a brand - new video related to the original one, showing content like "I interact with Spider - Man". This function greatly lowers the threshold for participating in popular trends and storylines, allowing everyone to easily participate in AIGC production.

On the other hand, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, personally got involved by opening up his personal portrait rights, which also accelerated the popularity of Sora. On foreign social platforms, there are videos of Sam Altman being caught stealing GPUs from a store, dancing in front of the pyramids, fighting with Bruce Lee, and playing basketball with Kobe Bryant, with such realistic details that they are almost indistinguishable from reality.

On Xiaohongshu in China, some quick - witted bloggers have already made Sam Altman participate in live - streaming e - commerce. It doesn't seem out of place to hear the familiar "3, 2, 1, link up!" coming from his mouth.

Source: Xiaohongshu

Based on the smooth performance of the finished videos, Sora2 also brings new imagination space to more industries.

Take the e - commerce field as an example. Currently, OpenAI has formed a closed - loop business model of "content platform stimulates demand (Sora) - payment channel ensures security (Stripe) - e - commerce platform supplies goods (Shopify/Etsy)". As the acceptance of video - based product promotion and live - streaming e - commerce is increasing globally, through the "Agentic Commerce Protocol" (ACP), Sora is expected to initiate a new "end - to - end" e - commerce model.

Moreover, OpenAI seems to be gradually strengthening its e - commerce gene. A few days ago, OpenAI announced the launch of a new "Instant Checkout" function, allowing users to directly complete product purchases through the content of its AI chatbot ChatGPT. This also marks the further acceleration of the integration of OpenAI and e - commerce, and ChatGPT has easily achieved a full - link closed - loop from "product recommendation" to "direct payment".

In the future, if content such as product display videos and buyer - show compilations generated by Sora with one click also enter this e - commerce closed - loop and are connected to the APIs of mainstream e - commerce platforms, it is expected to form a new "people - goods - scenario" logic different from traditional e - commerce platforms.

Meanwhile, the advertising and marketing costs have also been significantly reduced. In the past, high production costs, long production cycles, and professional thresholds were bottlenecks that restricted e - commerce sellers from large - scale expansion. Now, this is no longer a problem.

Peng Shengcai, the CEO of Agent Platform manufacturer Shuxin Technology, pointed out that the emergence of tool - type products like Sora2 will turn some previously unfeasible business models into reality and even directly create some new models.

For example, when a product was launched overseas in the past, it was necessary to find agents, channels, and conduct brand marketing, and gradually distribute the products, considering every aspect of the process. Now, with the help of emerging technologies such as AI, the entire process can be directly connected.

Currently, there are already some emerging companies in the market. Relying on China's strong local supply chain and production capabilities and leveraging the marketing, advertising, and customer - service functions provided by AI, they can bring products to overseas markets. This is completely different from the traditional overseas - expansion model. Even some "one - person companies" can complete the entire process. For these enterprises, the emergence of AI is like giving wings to their business, making previously unfeasible business feasible and opening up previously inaccessible markets.

However, this AI - dominated e - commerce model also places higher requirements on brands.

Peng Shengcai pointed out that in the past, the principle of product business was "channel is king". Companies needed to cover as many channels as possible so that different consumers could find their products on different channels as soon as possible. The role of platforms was very important. But after the emergence of AI, consumers may simply describe the products or services they need in one sentence, and the rest will be matched by AI. The value of channels will decline, while the value of brands will be magnified.

In this model, the only way to secure a consumption position brought by AI is to build a good brand. "In the past, we had to spend a lot of money on market research, marketing, and advertising. But now, we only need to do a good job in our products and services, and then distribute them to AI through MCP. AI will accurately find the products according to users' instructions. This is almost revolutionary for the entire industry, but in the long run, it is beneficial to the healthy development of the industry ecosystem," Peng Shengcai said.

(Note: MCP is the abbreviation of Model Context Protocol, which is an open - source standard for connecting AI applications to external systems. Based on the MCP protocol, major AI applications can be connected to data sources, tools, and workflows, enabling them to access key information and perform tasks.)

02. "Overturning the Short - Video Table"

What's even more subversive is that the Sora App driven by Sora2 follows the sliding - operation mode of TikTok, directly lowering the usage threshold for C - end users.

The outside world generally believes that it "overturns the short - video table" and even poses a huge threat to the business models of advertising, celebrity endorsements, film and television dramas, and the creative industry.

In September this year, TVB launched a 100% AI - generated short drama, "You Are Unique in My Heart". The protagonists, extras, scenes, background music, etc. in the drama were all generated by AI. In other words, in the production of this short drama, AI undertook all the duties of "screenwriter + director + art director + editor + post - production" and even played a huge role in the final operation and advertising stages.

From a technical perspective, Sora can already generate short videos up to 25 seconds long (15 seconds for ordinary users on the App and web versions, and up to 25 seconds for Pro users on the web version) with nearly 4K details. The pictures are sharper, the continuity between frames is better, and it can even achieve multi - language simultaneous translation. After the upgrade of Google Veo2, it can also provide high - quality 4K movie - level videos longer than 2 minutes. These tools have truly helped achieve a qualitative leap in content production.

As AI is deeply involved in all key links of short - drama production, it has become the core driving force for cost reduction and efficiency improvement. At the production end, from AI - generated scripts and storyboards to virtual production and intelligent editing, the time from idea to finished product has been greatly compressed. At the operation end, AI can intelligently generate a large number of marketing materials for A/B testing to achieve precise advertising, and at the same time, through user - data analysis, it can further feed back into the creation process to continuously optimize the content.

Traditional short - drama production requires a production cycle of 2 - 3 months and a trial - and - error cost of 500,000 - 2 million yuan, which is already the lowest cost line in the industry. However, AI - generated short dramas have evolved to the point where a drama can be produced in 10 - 15 days with a low - cost trial - and - error of 60,000 - 150,000 yuan, and the cost per episode can be reduced by up to 90%.

All these bring new imagination to the booming short - drama industry.

On the other hand, the influence of Sora has also spread to the social field.

With its finger - sliding interaction method, it is called the "AI version of Douyin". Users can create videos by uploading pictures and adding text prompts or use the Cameo function to generate videos based on their own or their friends' images. This strong interactivity and sense of closeness give the Sora App a strong social attribute.

Once the closed - loop of "browsing - inspiring - creating - sharing" starts, users will be firmly attracted to the platform. Each creation contributes new materials and templates to the ecosystem, forming an ecosystem where content grows naturally, that is, the "user - data flywheel". "AI + social media" may become the mainstream form in the future.

The impact of Sora2 on the advertising industry has also attracted much attention. However, for now, its impact has not been fully realized.

Peng Shengcai gave an example. In the advertising and marketing industry, the production of content such as copywriting, pictures, and videos is actually the end - stage link of the industrial chain. And this end - stage link is usually handled by an entire team, with internal divisions of labor such as planning, art design, directing, and editing. Sora2 may only have a certain impact on video producers (or editors). But in the century - old advertising and marketing industrial chain, Sora2 only affects less than 1% of the end - stage link. So he believes that "it is difficult for Sora2 to have a huge impact on the entire chain".

However, Peng Shengcai also pointed out that the emergence of Sora2 will indeed lead to cost reduction and efficiency improvement, which will help some people reap benefits.

For example, on the premise that the procurement price of video - advertising content by advertisers remains the same, those who can use AI well can increase the efficiency of video production by ten or even a hundred times with the help of tools like Sora2. With the same selling price but lower costs, the profits will naturally increase.

"But this kind of benefit is only short - term. Because the consequence is predictable. As the supply increases, competition will naturally intensify. At the same price, if someone can produce 10 videos, then others will dare to produce 50 or 100 videos. So during this window period when most people are not yet proficient in using AI to generate videos, some people can indeed make money. But this window period will not be long. I predict it will only be about half a year," Peng Shengcai predicted.

03. IP Revenue Sharing: A New Way to Make Money

The greater contribution of Sora2 is that it provides a new monetization idea for the entire industry.

In the past few years, most of the world's leading large - model products and vertical - field applications have adopted the "subscription - payment" model for monetization, that is, charging a fixed fee monthly or quarterly to provide a certain amount of API - call services.

Sam Altman publicly announced in his blog that the company will introduce an "IP revenue - sharing" mechanism. Specifically, this mechanism includes two steps. First, it gives copyright holders more detailed control. IP owners can set whether and how their characters can be used. Second, it explores a revenue - sharing model. When users generate videos using authorized characters and generate revenue, copyright holders can get a corresponding share.

In this way, the thinking has been broadened. In the past few years, copyright giants such as Disney, Marvel, Warner Bros., and Nintendo have been actively safeguarding their rights globally, trying to prevent their IPs from being infringed by users of AI tools. For example, the well - known text - to - image AI application Midjourney was frequently sued by Disney, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. from June to September this year.

Sam Altman has transformed the "hostile" relationship between the two sides into a "win - win" situation. For the above - mentioned copyright giants, if their IPs can be used by more vertical - field creators, it will undoubtedly further expand their influence, and they can also get a certain share of the revenue. For content creators active on the Internet, being able to legally use classic IP images provides them with more creative inspiration and can also avoid homogenization to a certain extent.

Looking at the successful experience of YouTube, this model is also beneficial to the healthy development of the entire industry. YouTube spent a lot of time establishing a mature copyright - recognition and revenue - sharing system. When a blogger uses a copyrighted piece of music or a film clip in their work, YouTube will automatically recognize and record it, and then distribute the advertising revenue generated by this video to the creator, the platform, and the copyright holder according to the agreed - upon ratio.

This win - win approach has helped YouTube become one of the most influential video websites globally. It is predicted that the global monthly active users (MAU) of YouTube will exceed 2.85 billion in 2025, covering 51% of Internet users worldwide.

Sam Altman's idea is to establish a similar revenue - sharing system. Users use Sora2 to create video content, and the platform records and tracks each piece of content. If it involves authorized IPs, the revenue will be distributed according to the agreed - upon ratio.

The "2025 - 2030 Panoramic Research and Investment Prospect Forecast Report on China's AI Video Industry" released by CRI - Puhua Industrial Research Institute shows that in 2023, the global AI video market reached a scale of $42 billion.

If the creator succeeds, the platform succeeds. Whether it is AI - generated images or AI - generated videos, they have been increasingly accepted by creators. If Sam Altman's idea comes true, the Sora App will no longer be just a simple tool but a