Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Surprise! Just days after reports emerged suggesting OpenAI was buying white-hot coding startup Windsurf, the former company appears to be launching its own competitor service as a research preview under its brand name Codex, going head-to-head against Windsurf, Cursor, and the growing list of AI coding tools offered by startups and large tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike OpenAI\u2019s previous Codex code completion AI model, the new version is a full cloud-based AI software engineering (SWE) agent built atop a fine-tuned version of OpenAI\u2019s o3 reasoning model that can execute multiple development tasks in parallel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Starting today it will be available for ChatGPT Pro, Enterprise, and Team users, with support for Plus and Edu users expected soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This release marks a significant step forward in Codex\u2019s development. The original Codex debuted in 2021 as a model for translating natural language into code available through OpenAI\u2019s nascent application programming interface. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the engine behind GitHub Copilot, the popular autocomplete-style coding assistant designed to work within IDEs like Visual Studio Code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That initial iteration focused on code generation and completion, trained on billions of lines of public source code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the early version came with limitations. It was prone to syntactic errors, insecure code suggestions, and biases embedded in its training data. Codex occasionally proposed superficially correct code that failed functionally, and in some cases, made problematic associations based on prompts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite those flaws, it showed enough promise to establish AI coding tools as a rapidly growing product category. That original model has since been deprecated and turned into the name of a new suite of products, according to an OpenAI spokesperson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n GitHub Copilot officially transitioned off OpenAI\u2019s Codex model in March 2023, adopting GPT-4 as part of its Copilot X upgrade to enable deeper IDE integration, chat capabilities, and more context-aware code suggestions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new Codex goes far beyond its predecessor. Now built to act autonomously over longer durations, Codex can write features, fix bugs, answer codebase-specific questions, run tests, and propose pull requests\u2014each task running in a secure, isolated cloud sandbox. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The design reflects OpenAI\u2019s broader ambition to move beyond quick answers and into collaborative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Josh Tobin, who leads the Agents Research Team at OpenAI, said during a recent briefing: \u201cWe think of agents as AI systems that can operate on your behalf for a longer period of time to accomplish big chunks of work by interacting with the real world.\u201d Codex fits squarely into this definition. \u201cOur vision is that ChatGPT will become almost like a virtual coworker\u2014not just answering quick questions, but collaborating on substantial work across a range of tasks,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figures released by OpenAI show that the new Codex-1 SWE agent outperforms all of OpenAI\u2019s latest reasoning models on internal SWE tasks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Codex tasks are initiated through a sidebar interface in ChatGPT, allowing users to prompt the agent with tasks or questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The agent processes each request in an air-gapped environment loaded with the user\u2019s repository and configured to mirror the development setup. It logs its actions, cites test outputs, and summarizes changes\u2014making its work traceable and reviewable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexander Embiricos, head of OpenAI\u2019s Desktop & Agents team (and the former CEO and co-founder of screenshare collaboration startup Multi that OpenAI acquired for an undisclosed sum last year) said in a briefing with journalists that \u201cthe Codex agent is a cloud-based software engineering agent that can work on many tasks in parallel, with its own computer to run safely and independently.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Internally, he said, engineers already use it \u201clike a morning to-do list\u2014fire off tasks to Codex and return to a batch of draft solutions ready to review or merge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Codex also supports configuration through AGENTS.md files\u2014project-level guides that teach the agent how to navigate a codebase, run specific tests, and follow house coding styles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe trained our model to read code and infer style\u2014like whether or not to use an Oxford comma\u2014because code style matters as much as correctness,\u201d Embiricos said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Codex executes tasks without internet access, drawing only on user-provided code and dependencies. This design ensures secure operation and minimizes potential misuse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is more than just a model API,\u201d said Embiricos. \u201cBecause it runs in an air-gapped environment with human review, we can give the model a lot more freedom safely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n OpenAI also reports early external use cases. Cisco is evaluating Codex for accelerating engineering work across its product lines. Temporal uses it to run background tasks like debugging and test writing. Superhuman leverages Codex to improve test coverage and enable non-engineers to suggest lightweight code changes. Kodiak, an autonomous vehicle firm, applies it to improve code reliability and gain insights into unfamiliar stack components.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OpenAI is also rolling out updates to Codex CLI, its lightweight terminal agent for local development. The CLI now uses a smaller model\u2014codex-mini-latest\u2014optimized for low-latency editing and Q&A. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The pricing is set at $1.50 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens, with a 75% caching discount. Codex is currently free to use during the rollout period, with rate limits and on-demand pricing options planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The release of Codex comes amid increased competition in the AI coding tools space\u2014and signals that OpenAI is intent on building, rather than buying, its next phase of products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to recent data from SimilarWeb, traffic to developer-focused AI tools has surged by 75% over the past 12 weeks, underscoring the growing demand for coding assistants as essential infrastructure rather than experimental add-ons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reports from TechCrunch and Bloomberg suggest OpenAI held acquisition talks with fast-growing AI dev tool startups Cursor and Windsurf. Cursor allegedly walked away from the table; Windsurf reportedly agreed in principle to be acquired by OpenAI for a price of $3 billion, though no deal has been officially confirmed by either OpenAI or Windsurf. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just yesterday, in fact, Windsurf debuted its own family of coding-focused foundation models, SWE-1, purpose-built to support the full software engineering lifecycle, from debugging to long-running project maintenance. SWE-1 models were reported custom made, trained entirely in-house using a new sequential data model tailored to real-world development workflows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many things may be happening behind the scenes between the two companies, but to me, the timing of Windsurf launching its own coding foundation model \u2014 instead of its strategy to-date of using Llama variants and giving users the option to slot in OpenAI and Anthropic models \u2014 followed one day later by OpenAI releasing its own Windsurf competitor, seems to suggest the two are not aligning soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But on the other hand, the fact that this new Codex AI SWE agent is in \u201cresearch preview\u201d to start may be a form of OpenAI pressuring Windsurf or Cursor or anyone else to come to the bargaining table and strike a deal. Asked about the potential for a Windsurf acquisition and reports of one thereof, an OpenAI spokesperson told VentureBeat they had nothing to share on that front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In either case, Embiricos frames Codex as far more than a mere code tool or assistant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re about to undergo a seismic shift in how developers work with agents\u2014not just pairing with them in real time, but fully delegating tasks,\u201d he said. \u201cThe first experiments were just reasoning models with terminal access. The experience was magical\u2014they started doing things for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Codex is designed with professional developers in mind, but Embiricos noted that even product managers have found it helpful for suggesting or validating changes before pulling in human SWEs. This versatility reflects OpenAI\u2019s strategy of building tools that augment productivity across technical teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trini, an engineering lead on the project, summarized the broader ambition behind Codex: \u201cThis is a transformative change in how software engineers interface with AI and computers in general. It amplifies each person\u2019s potential.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n OpenAI envisions Codex as the centerpiece of a new development workflow where engineers assign high-level tasks to agents and collaborate with them asynchronously. The company is building toward deeper integrations across GitHub, ChatGPT Desktop, issue trackers, and CI systems. The long-term goal is to blend real-time pairing and long-horizon task delegation into a seamless development experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Josh Tobin put it, \u201cCoding underpins so many useful things across the economy. Accelerating coding is a particularly high-leverage way to distribute the benefits of AI to humanity, including ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether or not OpenAI closes deals for competitors, the message is clear: Codex is here, and OpenAI is betting on its own agents to lead the next chapter in developer productivity.<\/p>\n Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily<\/strong><\/p>\n If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n An error occured.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>Codex\u2019s evolution: from model to autonomous AI coding agent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Agentic visions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nNew capabilities, new interface, new workflows<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Security and practical use<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Does this mean OpenAI IS NOT buying Windsurf? *Thinking face emoji*<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Built for dev teams, not merely solo devs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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