There is currently a low-level war between OpenAI and Anthropic over who can release the most useful and powerful AI coding tools, and so far Anthropic seems to be winning. As TechCrunch reported last week, Claude Code is said to be the tool of choice for many companies, but OpenAI isn’t giving up just yet.
This week, OpenAI announced a revamp of its proprietary automation tool, Codex, with a variety of new updates designed to provide significantly expanded functionality.
On Thursday, the company announced a number of new features and updates, but perhaps the most notable is that Codex can now run in the background of your computer. You can perform operations by opening any app on your desktop, clicking the cursor, and typing.
Functionally, this allows Codex to deploy multiple agents, all of which work in parallel on a user’s Mac “without interfering with the user’s own work in other apps,” the company said in a blog post. In other words, the way Codex runs in the background allows you to use your machine while the agent does its own work. The company says agents act as a kind of coding buddy, performing auxiliary tasks while you work on your main project. OpenAI lists potential use cases for this kind of agent assistance as “iterating front-end changes, testing apps, or working with apps that don’t expose APIs.”
Overall, this agent update and other new additions demonstrate OpenAI’s desire to make Codex not only a competitive coding assistant, but also a more versatile tool that can be integrated into a variety of enterprise workflows.
Those keeping an eye on the AI coding space will also note that some of the features OpenAI is currently adding to Codex look similar to what Anthropic previously released for Claude Code. Last month, Anthropic announced that Claude and Cowork can remotely control your Mac and desktop for you when you’re away from the keyboard.
In addition to agent tools, OpenAI’s Codex now includes an in-app browser. This allows users to issue commands to the agent tool, which ostensibly runs the commands on a specific web application. OpenAI says the feature will be useful for front-end and game development, and will eventually expand to allow Codex to “give full control of the browser beyond web applications on localhost.”
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There are other updates as well. A new feature in Preview called “Memory” allows Codex to recall previous work sessions and generate important context about how a particular user works. The agent also has new image generation capabilities that OpenAI says can be used to create product concepts, slide visuals, mockups, placeholder images, and other corporate paraphernalia. Finally, to expand Codex’s execution capabilities, the company announced 111 plugin integrations from apps like CodeRabbit and GitLab Issues. This allows Codex to perform tasks related to these tools.
Following the OpenAI framework, these plugins allow Codex to perform simple administrative tasks to organize your work life. For example, if you want Codex to look through your Slack channels and Google calendar to provide you with a to-do list for the day, OpenAI says it can now do that automatically.
A new pay-as-you-go Codex pricing option for ChatGPT enterprise and business customers was also announced, in a clear effort to give users more flexibility when procuring coding tool services.
OpenAI, once considered the industry’s undisputed leader, has been in even more intense competition with Anthropic in recent months by focusing on enterprise features and moving away from consumer tools like social video app Sora 2. The company has also been battling various controversies in recent months, including a lawsuit over ChatGPT’s alleged mental health effects on some users.
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