OpenAI2026-10-17 07:12:21How OpenAI’s Codex rebounded in under a year and became the new ChatGPT desktop appDan Shipper, co-founder and CEO of tech media company Every, has published a long-form report titled How Codex Happened, tracing how OpenAI’s coding agent Codex moved from a stalled cloud product to the foundation of the new ChatGPT desktop app. Based on months of reporting and interviews with six key contributors — Greg Brockman, Thibault Sottiaux, Alexander Embiricos, Mia Glaese, Andrew Ambrosino and Ed Bayes — the piece lays out a sequence of product pivots that unfolded across roughly a year. According to the report, Codex cycled through four product forms: cloud, terminal, editor sidebar and finally a native desktop application with no built-in code editor at all. OpenAI first pushed a cloud-based Codex that launched on May 16, 2025, but the product struggled outside the company because users had to recreate their local setup in remote environments and could not easily steer tasks mid-run. The team later shifted to local execution, rewrote the agent core in Rust, improved the GPT-5 Codex model line for real-world codebases, and built a desktop experience centered on autonomous agents rather than manual editing. The numbers cited in the story are striking. Every reported that Codex surpassed 5 million weekly active users in June 2026. On July 9, the Codex desktop app became the new ChatGPT desktop app. Codex and ChatGPT for Work now exceed 40 million weekly active users combined, and Thibault Sottiaux has since taken charge of OpenAI’s core products and platform, overseeing ChatGPT, Codex and the API.130
Anthropic2026-07-21 16:14:38Anthropic adds screen-recorded skill creation to Claude CoworkAnthropic said on July 21 through its official X account @ClaudeAI that Claude Cowork now includes a new feature called "Record a Skill." The tool lets users teach Claude a repeatable task by recording their screen while narrating what they are doing. Once the recording is finished, Claude converts the screen demo and spoken explanation into a reusable skill that it can execute later. The feature appears in the "+" menu of the Claude desktop app under the name "Record a skill" and is currently available to users on Claude Pro, Max, and Team plans. Anthropic has not said whether it will extend access to the free tier or the Enterprise plan. The update changes how skills can be created inside Claude. Previously, users had to build them manually with a SKILL.md file and YAML frontmatter. Anthropic presented the new workflow as a demonstration-based way to "Teach Claude a skill." The company also tied the launch to the broader expansion of Claude Cowork, which it describes as an agentic work tool that can operate across connected files, calendars, email, messaging software, and the web.1830
