Codex’s terminal pivot made it OpenAI’s new centerpiece
OpenAI’s Codex went from a cloud launch that failed to find product-market fit to the centerpiece of its product strategy, changing the tool from a limited pair programmer into something developers could run on their own machines. The pivot put Codex in the terminal and code editor, where an agent can take on a whole software task instead of waiting for step-by-step instructions. Every’s testing found GPT-5 in Codex felt boxed in beside Claude Code, which could return finished features or apps with minimal help.