OpenAI said its Codex coding assistant now has more than 3 million weekly developer users, and the company is introducing a series of upgrades intended to grow that figure and narrow Anthropic's lead in AI coding tools.

A major emphasis of Thursday's updates was expanding what Codex can do by providing access to more tools. For instance, the biggest Codex upgrade is its ability to run desktop apps in the background on your computer. This enables multiple agents to work in parallel without affecting other apps, a major win for developers.

“The first thing we went out to do is to teach Codex and the app to work across a much larger surface area instead of just call and response with some plugins,” said Andrew Ambrosino, Codex App Lead, during a media briefing.

The Codex app now also has an in-app browser that works natively with the web, allowing developers to comment on the page and provide instructions to agents, according to the release. Codex can also now use gpt-image-1.5 to generate and edit images.

OpenAI also launched 111 new Plugins for Codex, which combine skills, app integrations, and MCP servers to enable it to access more information and take more actions. The upgrades, as described in the blog post, also include:

• Software cycle: Codex can address GitHub review comments, run multiple
• terminal tabs, and connect to remote devboxes over SSH in alpha
• Sidebar: Files are accessible directly in the sidebar for PDF, spreadsheet, slides, and doc preview
• Summary pane: Located in the sidebar, it allows users to track agent plans, sources, and artifacts
• Personalization: The app can reuse existing conversation threads for improved context, and a new memory feature, in preview, allows it to remember context from previous experiences, such as preferences and information accumulated over time
• Future work: It can schedule future work for itself and wake up automatically, potentially across days or weeks, targeting longer tasks
• Suggestions: Using context, Codex can propose where to pick up the last project or how to start your workday

The updates are rolling out to all signed-in Codex desktop users. However, there are exceptions. Computer use is limited to macOS users, for now, and Personalization features will roll out to Enterprise, Edu, and EU users soon.

Our Deeper View

Less than a month ago, OpenAI rolled out sweeping organizational changes that signaled a decisive push into enterprise products. The pace and intentionality behind the latest Codex developments reinforce that commitment. The Claude Code desktop redesign, which launched this week, also focused on enabling developers to run parallel agents and tasks, reflecting the scale at which developers are using these AI tools. Ultimately, several of the Codex upgrades further narrow the gap with Claude Claude, underscoring that the race to capture the developer market keeps heating up.