How We Used Codex to Ship Sora for Android in 28 Days

As of April 26, 2026, the Sora product is no longer available.

In November, we launched the Sora Android app to the world, giving anyone with an Android device the ability to turn a short prompt into a vivid video. On launch day, the app reached #1 in the Play Store. Android users generated more than a million videos in the first 24 hours.

Behind the launch is a story: the initial version of Sora’s production Android app was built in 28 days, thanks to the same agent that’s available to any team or developer: Codex.

From October 8 to November 5, 2025, a lean engineering team working alongside Codex and consuming roughly 5 billion tokens, shipped Sora for Android from prototype to global launch. Despite its scale, the app has a crash-free rate of 99.9 percent and an architecture we’re proud of. If you’re wondering whether we used a secret model, we used an early version of the GPT‑5.1‑Codex model – the same version that any developer or business can use today via CLI, IDE extension, or web app.

Prompt: figure skater performs a triple axle with a cat on her head

Embracing Brooks’ Law: Staying nimble to move fast

When Sora launched on iOS, usage exploded. People immediately began generating a stream of videos. On Android, by contrast, we had only a small internal prototype and a mounting number of pre-registered users on Google Play.

A common response to a high stakes, time-pressured launch is to pile on resources and add process. A production app of this scope and quality would typically involve many engineers working for months, slowed down by coordination. 

Working this way, we shipped an internal build of Sora for Android to employees in 18 days and launched publicly 10 days later. We maintained a high bar on Android engineering practices, invested in maintainability, and held the app to the same reliability bar we would expect from a more traditional project. (We also continue to use Codex extensively today to evolve and bring new features to the app).

Where Codex excels