OpenAI adds reusable ‘characters’ and video stitching to Sora

OpenAI’s Sora app will now let you turn almost anything into a reusable avatar for its AI-generated videos. These “character cameos” are one of several new features that have been added to the Sora 2 video generator, alongside clip stitching and leaderboards that showcase the app’s most popular videos and cameos.

Character cameos were teased last week, and build on the existing feature that allows Sora users to create AI deepfakes of themselves that can be used by everyone else on the platform, if permitted. Those same capabilities can now be used on other subjects, such as pets, illustrations, and toys, and the feature is launching with a selection of pre-made characters that users can add to videos.

“Once created, each character comes with its own permissions, separate from your personal likeness: keep it just for yourself, share it with mutual followers, or open it to everyone on Sora,” OpenAI says in the latest Sora release notes. “Give your character a display name and handle, and tag it whenever you want it to appear in a video.”

OpenAI says that character cameos can be created using “an original persona” that users generate in Sora, but it’s unclear if the feature will accept fictional people generated using other AI tools, or how photorealistic they’re permitted to be. If you can just upload any AI-generated person, OpenAI hasn’t explained how Sora would distinguish these from images of real people. The update is being launched within days of celebrity video platform Cameo slapping OpenAI with a trademark infringement lawsuit over its usage of “cameo” in Sora app features.

Sora is also introducing video stitching capabilities that can connect multiple videos together to create longer, multi-scene clips, and leaderboards that show the most remixed videos and the most cameoed users and characters. OpenAI has temporarily made the Sora app more accessible to get people using these features, announcing yesterday that people in the US, Canada, Japan, and Korea can sign up without an invitation code for a “limited time.”