OpenAI rolls out Codex agent to write, debug, and ship software

Published 16/05/2025, 17:02
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Investing.com -- OpenAI has launched Codex, a cloud-based software engineering agent created to automate and streamline many of the routine tasks developers perform today. Powered by codex-1, a variant of the company’s o3 model tailored for code generation, Codex is now available to ChatGPT Pro, Team and Enterprise users, with broader access planned soon.

Codex allows users to write features, fix bugs, answer codebase questions and generate pull requests, all inside secure sandboxed environments preloaded with repositories. “It is a software engineering agent that runs in the cloud and does tasks for you, like writing a new feature or fixing a bug,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Accessible via the ChatGPT interface, Codex accepts task prompts through a “Code” or “Ask” function. Each task runs in its own environment where the agent can read and modify files, execute tests and commit changes, while producing verifiable logs and outputs.

The tool has been positioned as an assistant developer that works in parallel, helping teams reduce context-switching and deal with low-focus engineering tasks. “It is amazing and exciting how much software one person is going to be able to create with tools like this,” Altman said, framing Codex as a transformative enabler for productivity.

Codex’s agent operates in strictly sandboxed containers without internet access, interacting only with the code and dependencies explicitly provided. The company has prioritized safety and transparency, requiring users to manually verify results and releasing the launch as a research preview to gather feedback and refine safeguards.

A notable feature is Codex’s adherence to user-specified project norms through AGENTS.md files, which guide its behavior on tasks like testing, file navigation and style preferences. According to OpenAI, the codex-1 model consistently “produces cleaner patches ready for immediate human review” compared to prior generations like o3.

OpenAI’s release adds pressure to an increasingly crowded space, where GitHub, Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and startups like Anysphere are racing to define the future of code creation via AI. In parallel, Bloomberg previously reported that OpenAI is in talks to acquire coding assistant startup Windsurf for roughly $3 billion, in what would be its largest acquisition, underscoring the high strategic value placed on code-generation agents.

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