This Chinese AI Video Tool Just Reached 60M Users, Competing With Sora

What began as a short-video platform competing with ByteDance has evolved into one of the world’s most widely adopted AI video tools.

Beijing-based Kuaishou’s AI video generator, Kling, has exploded in popularity since launching in July 2024, with reports indicating that the video tool has already garnered more than 60 million users. That growth now places Kling in direct competition with high-profile rivals like OpenAI’s Sora and other leading generative video platforms.

Following the unveiling of Sora, Kuaishou moved decisively, shifting its focus from social video feeds to generative video technology. The pivot paid off fast, as Kling gained immediate traction in China before breaking out internationally. The video generator climbed app charts and attracted creators, businesses, and developers across multiple regions.

Today, Kling’s massive and rapidly growing user base positions Kuaishou not as a regional player dabbling in AI, but as a global platform with real influence in the generative video race. Its popularity signals how quickly the balance of power in AI video creation is shifting.

The race to rival OpenAI

Kuaishou quickly became a global name thanks to its swift move into AI video generation. Competing with other AI companies racing to dominate the space, Kuaishou leveraged two key advantages to outpace global giants like OpenAI:

• Cost-effective access to Chinese AI compute infrastructure
• Deep resources and experience from its roots as a short-video platform

Strong demand from creators and businesses for high-quality, realistic video generation propelled the tool up the app rankings in countries such as the US, UK, Japan, and South Korea.

According to this Tech in Asia blog, the app ranks among the top 10 best graphics and design apps on the iOS App Store in markets such as the US, UK, Japan, Australia, and Turkey. Meanwhile, it already holds the No. 1 spot in Russia and South Korea.

Kling’s growth in these markets underscores its accessibility and cost-effectiveness for creators who demand high quality at an affordable price. Its growing user engagement has also drawn the attention of investors. Beyond the company’s metrics, the tool’s popularity and innovative abilities provide investors with a signal of trust and long-term growth.

How Kling compares with OpenAI’s Sora

A closer look at Kling versus OpenAI’s Sora shows where each platform excels and why Kling is growing quickly:

• Accessibility: Sora is accessible via its iOS, Android, and ChatGPT apps, as well as its websites. Kling AI can be accessed through its dedicated app, web interface, and third-party APIs.
• Prompt efficiency: Sora converts text prompts to videos, but Kling still excels at producing high-quality videos using text prompts.
• Video length: Sora’s video length ranges from 15 to 20 seconds. Kling offers a more generous output length, with its extension features.
• Quality: While Kling outputs clean video quality, reports from various tests, including this report from Crepal AI indicates that Sora is the better option. Both, however, produce the same resolution (1920 x 1080p)
• Controls: Kling offers more granular and iterative editing controls, reducing regenerations for minor edits… unlike Sora.
• Userbase: Kling boasts 60 million users, far surpassing Sora’s 3 million. With over 10,000 corporate customers, Kling is aggressively pursuing dominance in the enterprise sector.
• Pricing: Both use a credit-based method, but Sora’s pricing is tied to ChatGPT’s plans, which set a monthly credit limit based on the plan. Kling’s pricing is more robust and cheaper. There is a free tier with 10-second watermarked videos. There are also paid plans that start at $8.

Future headwinds and past challenges

Amid investor enthusiasm, a rapidly growing user base, and a profitable future, Kling is not without its own problems. A recent cyberattack on the company hijacked its AI platform, causing it to generate sexually explicit videos on live streams.

The breach, which was quickly resolved, resulted in a 6% loss in Kuaishou’s share value. Beyond that, this event underscores how volatile things can be, putting into question whether they can stay at the top of AI affairs for long.

For more on how another major player is pushing the boundaries of AI-generated video, check out this look at Google’s Veo 3 and its advanced text-to-video features.