OpenAI’s big Codex update is a direct shot at Anthropic’s Claude Code

OpenAI has updated Codex, its agentic coding system (an AI that can independently perform multi-step coding tasks), to control desktop applications, generate images, and remember previous interactions. The new features let Codex operate apps in the background without interrupting user work and allow multiple agents (separate AI instances) to work simultaneously, which OpenAI says is useful for testing frontend changes and working with applications that don't have APIs (standardized ways for software to communicate).