𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝗔𝗜 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗽𝗽 𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻

It failed badly!

OpenAI Sora Lessons Learned

That tells us a lot about where AI actually is today.

Four OpenAI engineers tried to build the Android app for Sora.
They gave Codex full access to the iOS codebase.
The instruction was simple: “Make the Android version.”

12 hours later, the result was… unusable.
Their words: “Certainly not something we could show anybody.”

And this is important:
These are the people who literally build the most advanced AI in the world.

So what did they change?

They stopped.
Went back to basics.
Spent a week doing things by hand:

Architecture.
Modular structure.
Clear documentation.
Rules for the AI to follow (AGENT md).

Only then did they reconnect codex
But with a new workflow:
Analyze first.
Plan second.
Code last.

Normal software engineering.

This time it worked.

28 days to global release.
85% of the code written by AI.
99.9% crash-free.
4 engineers performing like a team of 16.

The big lesson for me:
AI doesn’t replace thinking.
It amplifies structure.

The bottleneck has moved.
It’s no longer typing code.
It’s clarity, decisions, and direction.

“Just give AI everything and let it figure it out” doesn’t work.
Not even at OpenAI.

Photo by Levart_Photographer on Unsplash