Codex news

OpenAI said on Nov. 6 (Nov. 7 Japan time) on its official X account for developers that it had added a "Showcase" tab to the "OpenAI Developers" plugin used in ChatGPT and Codex. Eligible ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers can apply API credits claimed in billing settings to their app's API usage, it said. According to official documentation, Pro credits match the subscription price at $100 to $500 a month, while Business credits add up per-seat amounts to a maximum of $500 a month, and unused credits expire at the end of the billing period. Codex usage via API keys is not covered. The official documentation does not describe the tab's interface or contents, and they could not be confirmed.

Thibault Sottiaux, who leads Codex at OpenAI, posted on X on Nov. 5 (Nov. 6 Japan time) that images created in ChatGPT and the API had topped 4 billion a week, up from more than 3 billion a week 8 weeks earlier. Media reports, citing OpenAI, also said the daily average was more than 500 million. All figures come from the company, and the split between ChatGPT and the API, the number of images by model and how a week is counted could not be confirmed, nor has any third-party verification been found. Big Technology wrote on Nov. 3 that the figure was 1.5 billion a week, with no explanation for the gap.

OpenAI on Nov. 3 (Nov. 4 Japan time) released "v0.22.0-alpha.1," an alpha version of its "Agents SDK" development kit for JavaScript and TypeScript, as a prerelease on GitHub. It embeds the runtime (harness) of the coding tool "Codex," which can handle model calls, tool execution, history and context summarization. It was introduced in a post by an outside developer, and no official OpenAI announcement had been found as of Nov. 5. The stable version on npm remains 0.21.0, and installation requires Node.js 24 and files distributed on GitHub. Existing in-progress state cannot be carried over. Pricing and the timing of a general release are unconfirmed.

Cat Wu, who served as product lead for Anthropic's AI coding tool "Claude Code," said on X on Nov. 4 (Nov. 5 Japan time) that she is joining OpenAI. She will lead product management for "Core Products," which includes ChatGPT and Codex. The announcement came five days after her last day at Anthropic; according to Business Insider, OpenAI confirmed the hire and Anthropic declined to comment. Her formal title, start date and scope of responsibility for Codex are unconfirmed. With Anthropic preparing for an IPO expected in the week of Nov. 16, the former head of one of its flagship products is moving to a rival.

OpenAI announced on Nov. 4 (Nov. 5 Japan time) that it will acquire Pierre Computer Company, a U.S. developer tools company. Pierre makes "Code Storage," which stores code in Git for AI agents, and open-source software that displays file lists and code diffs, the latter already used in the Codex app. OpenAI said it would make Codex "a place where teams can build software together with AI, from first idea to the version they ship." It has not disclosed the price or when the deal will close, which awaits regulatory approval. Axios reported that the deal targets Microsoft's GitHub. The acquisition follows OpenAI's purchases of Astral in March and Ona in June to strengthen Codex.

Game engine maker Unity on Nov. 3 posted a video on X introducing its official plugin for OpenAI's AI coding tool "Codex." Released in September, the plugin lets Codex choose and use on its own 31 kinds of task procedures (skills) written by Unity engineers. Unity has been extending the same skills to Anthropic's Claude Code, xAI's Grok Build, Google's Antigravity and GitHub Copilot CLI. The plugin does not connect directly to a running Unity Editor, and the version is at the beta stage. Unity will report July-September results on Nov. 5.

OpenAI on Nov. 3 disclosed efforts to use ChatGPT and Codex for mechanical design, electrical design and simulation. Two employees used GPT-6 Astra to design an audio device for talking with Codex, from the enclosure to the circuit board and firmware, in less than a week, and a contract manufacturer built prototypes in less than a month. In preparing for mass production, however, the model could not consistently account for tolerances and assembly conditions, and human review was needed repeatedly. OpenAI is collaborating with Mazda on research into vehicle aerodynamic design and is testing with Chip Ganassi Racing the creation of drawings from 3D scans of parts. No new products or pricing were announced.

China's ByteDance will, from November, keep outside AI such as Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's Codex from accessing code repositories and internal documents in its internal confidentiality category "L4," TokenPost reported on Nov. 3. Use through AI accounts that employees bought personally will also be banned, with some parts of its own AI unit Seed exempt, the report said. The move is said to be aimed at preventing information leaks. ByteDance has made no official announcement.

OpenAI on Nov. 2 unveiled on its engineering blog "Pando," a new Git backend built for its huge internal repository. It built the system because its AI coding tool Codex increased the number of tasks each person runs at once, causing pushes and fetches to surge beyond what the existing system could handle. Pando cut median push latency by about 80% and serves about 1 petabyte of Git data a day. It remains compatible with Git, and some improvements have been merged into Git itself. Pando itself is for internal use and has not been released.

Google on Oct. 26 released "Gemini API CLI," a command-line tool for calling the Gemini API from AI agents and scripts, as an open-source beta. Agents from other companies, such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, can request image, video, speech and music generation, or the reading of PDFs and videos, with a one-line command. It is separate from "Gemini CLI," the interactive coding agent, and is not its successor. Because it is in beta, compatibility may break even in minor version updates.

OpenAI updated the command-line version of its programming tool "Codex" to 0.164.0 on Oct. 23. The update added "presets" that let users save and recall up to 10 frequently used prompts, the ability to change the model and permissions together with a prompt, and sign-in to enterprise MCP servers. Thibault Sottiaux, who leads Codex, said use of the command-line version has doubled since the developer event "DevDay."

Thibault Sottiaux, who leads Codex and other products at OpenAI, said on X on Oct. 21 that the always-on AI agent "dots" is fully included in the Pro plan, which starts at $100 a month, and does not consume weekly usage limits. He also posted "Dot, Dotter, Dottest," hinting at bigger versions. The posts came just after Anthropic released "Claude Duet," an always-on agent that shares usage limits, the same day. However, tasks that dots starts in Codex and elsewhere still use usage limits as before.

OpenAI and Google Cloud said on Oct. 21 that OpenAI's models, including "GPT-6 Astra," would be offered on a trial basis to some businesses through "Model Garden," Google Cloud's model service. Availability will be expanded to the general public within a few weeks. The AI coding tool "Codex" can also be connected to Google's infrastructure. Businesses can buy OpenAI's models under their Google Cloud contract commitments, with billing consolidated into one. Following Amazon, OpenAI's models will be available on all three major U.S. clouds.

Two serious flaws that let attackers run arbitrary programs remotely were found in PHP, a language widely used for website programs, and an emergency fix was released on Oct. 21. OpenAI President Greg Brockman said the flaws were found using the company's model and that it spent two months forming a coalition with the companies involved to address them. The flaws are said to have existed for 14 years. Finland, the Netherlands and France temporarily took government websites offline the same day.

Thibault Sottiaux, who leads OpenAI's programming assistant "Codex," said on Oct. 20 that, after reports over the weekend that Codex usage allowances were running down faster than expected, about 40,000 accounts had been assigned usage limits that differed from the plans they subscribe to. The bug has been fixed, and affected users were contacted individually and given usage credits as compensation. He did not say which plans were affected or in which direction the limits were off.

Thibault Sottiaux, who leads OpenAI's AI coding tool Codex, said on Oct. 16 (Oct. 17 Japan time) that Codex and ChatGPT Work had received improvements that increase the amount of work that can be done under the same usage limits. The changes reuse context between subagents, the helper AIs that split up a task, extend how long the cache is kept and revise how requests are routed. He gave no figures on how much usage would fall. The change was day 12 of a campaign in which OpenAI pledged to ship one improvement or reset usage limits every day for 28 days starting Oct. 5.

"GPT-6.2 Astra," seen as a new version of OpenAI's top model "GPT-6 Astra," appeared in the usage logs of some users of its AI coding service "Codex." The model selection screen still showed GPT-6 Astra, leading to speculation that it is a test in which some tasks are handled by the new model without telling users. OpenAI has not made an announcement, and many aspects of where the screenshots came from cannot be verified. In September, the company canceled the release of "GPT-6.1 Astra," citing the results of safety tests. With rival Anthropic having filed to go public and talk of a new model from it as well, prediction markets put the probability of a release between Nov. 2 and 8 at 37.3%.

OpenAI on Oct. 30 (Oct. 31 Japan time) added support in ChatGPT's iOS app for "Live Activities," which show the status of work by its AI coding tool "Codex" running on a user's own PC on the lock screen and elsewhere. A Codex staff member disclosed the change on X. "Codex remote," which lets users control Codex on a PC from a smartphone, became generally available on all plans in June, and users can now check progress without opening the app. Codex's weekly users reached 7 million in July. GitHub and Cursor had added similar displays by the summer.

OpenAI said on Oct. 30 (Oct. 31 Japan time) that it had added five features to its "Agents API," which lets companies build AI agents into their own products. The centerpiece is "Auto Review," in which a separate AI reviews actions an agent is about to take and stops dangerous ones, a mechanism ported from its coding assistant "Codex." It also added a feature that summarizes context without halting long-running work and an experimental feature that tells the AI how much time has passed. Auto Review is disabled by default, and OpenAI has not published a list of the actions subject to review. The Agents API began a public beta in September, and Anthropic and others offer similar platforms.

OpenAI said on a help page on Oct. 31 (Nov. 1 Japan time) that starting in December, usage limits for ChatGPT's paid "Plus," "Pro" and "Business" plans will become a single allowance shared between ChatGPT and its coding assistant "Codex." The allowance is counted in tokens rather than the number of uses, and more capable models draw it down faster. The standard conversational mode "Instant" is not counted. OpenAI has not disclosed the size of each plan's allowance or the start date. OpenAI had just doubled the limits for all Pro tiers on Oct. 29, and Anthropic also removed the five-hour limit on its top plan on Oct. 30.