OpenAI is making a serious play for the future of software development. The company just launched Codex, a new AI agent built to write features, squash bugs, and run tests—all within ChatGPT. Available first to paying users on Pro, Team, and Enterprise plans, Codex is powered by a customized version of OpenAI's o3 model, fine-tuned for engineering tasks. It's still early days, and the tool isn't fully autonomous yet—but OpenAI staff are already using it daily, and external testers like Cisco and Kodiak Robotics have jumped in to explore use cases ranging from automation to prototyping.
The bigger story? OpenAI could be preparing to buy Windsurf, a fast-growing startup in the AI coding space, for about $3 billion—potentially the company's largest acquisition to date. That would put OpenAI in direct competition with Google (GOOG, Financial), Anthropic, and Microsoft (MSFT, Financial)-backed GitHub, all of which are racing to build the best AI copilots for developers. Startups like Cursor-maker Anysphere are also drawing investor interest with tools that suggest code based on a developer's intent, and Windsurf sits right in the middle of that action. If the deal goes through, OpenAI wouldn't just be scaling Codex—it could be buying its way into developer mindshare.
Under the hood, Codex is being framed as a stepping stone toward full-blown AI agents—systems that can handle complex workflows with minimal human direction. Depending on the task, Codex might take anywhere from a minute to half an hour to complete a job, and OpenAI says it's seeing rapid improvement in the model's reasoning capabilities. Importantly, Codex was also trained to flag and reject malicious requests, addressing concerns around AI-generated malware. For now, OpenAI seems to be testing both the product and the market. But with billions on the table and demand growing fast, this could be a critical chapter in the arms race to own the future of AI-powered development.
