OpenAI Is Developing a ‘Persistent’ AI Agent

OpenAI is developing a proactive, highly persistent version of its flagship AI agent, Codex, WIRED has learned.

In recent days, OpenAI has started adding code for a new “Persistent mode” setting to its command line version of Codex, according to changes made to the product’s code base reviewed by WIRED. Changes to the Codex command line tool are made public by default, and new features tend to surface there before making their way to OpenAI’s other agent products, such as the Codex desktop app and ChatGPT Work.

Persistent mode has not been broadly rolled out or announced yet, but could be in the future. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to WIRED that the company is testing this feature, but said there are no immediate plans to launch it.

“OpenAI is a very bottom-up culture and many different things are explored on the open source repo which is a bit of our shared playground," said Thibault Sottiaux, OpenAI’s head of core products, in a statement to WIRED.

The feature appears to be OpenAI’s latest attempt to make AI agents that people will actually want to use. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta are racing to deliver general-purpose agent products that will help people automate tasks across their work and personal lives, such as filing expense reports or scheduling doctor’s appointments. So far, the people who use AI agents are largely software engineers, but Silicon Valley believes the tech could be a major line of business with a much broader customer base.