OpenAI just dropped a native MacOS app for Codex that could shake up how developers work with AI coding assistants. The new release integrates the agentic workflows that have made tools like Claude Code popular, letting multiple AI agents tackle complex programming tasks in parallel. It's OpenAI's most aggressive move yet to compete in the rapidly evolving AI coding space, coming just weeks after the company unveiled GPT-5.2-Codex, its most powerful coding model to date.
OpenAI is making its boldest play yet for the developer market. The company launched a native MacOS app for Codex on Monday, packed with the multi-agent workflows and autonomous coding features that have become table stakes in AI development tools.
The release puts OpenAI in direct competition with Anthropic's Claude Code and Cowork apps, which have defined what agentic coding looks like in practice. These systems let AI agents work independently on programming tasks, breaking down complex projects into manageable chunks that multiple agents can tackle simultaneously.
For OpenAI, it's a critical catch-up moment. The company first released Codex as a command-line tool last April, then expanded to a web interface a month later. But while competitors were shipping polished native apps with sophisticated agent orchestration, OpenAI was still asking developers to work through terminal windows and browsers.
The new MacOS app changes that equation. It's built around parallel agent workflows, meaning multiple AI assistants can collaborate on different parts of a project at the same time. Developers can set up automations that run on schedules, churning through coding tasks in the background while they focus on higher-level problems. When they return, completed work sits in a review queue waiting for approval.
"If you really want to do sophisticated work on something complex, 5.2 is the strongest model by far," CEO Sam Altman told reporters on a press call, referring to the that powers the app. "However, it's been harder to use, so taking that level of model capability and putting it in a more flexible interface, we think is going to matter quite a bit."
