Powering next generation applications with OpenAI Codex

OpenAI

Codex is now powering 70 different applications across a variety of use cases through the OpenAI API.

Update on May 16, 2025: We launched Codex, a cloud-based software engineering agent that can work on many tasks in parallel. Learn more⁠.

OpenAI Codex⁠, a natural language-to-code system based on GPT‑3, helps turn simple English instructions into over a dozen popular coding languages. Codex was released last August through our API and is the principal building block of GitHub Copilot⁠(opens in a new window).

Our motivation behind Codex is to supplement developers’ work and increase productivity. Codex helps computers to better understand people’s intent, which enables everyone to do more with computers. This is an integral part of our mission to build general-purpose AI that benefits all of humanity.

For enterprise customers, Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service provides developers with access to Codex and our other models, like GPT‑3 and embeddings, along with enterprise-grade capabilities that are built into Microsoft Azure. At its Build conference today, Microsoft announced⁠(opens in a new window) that Azure OpenAI Service—previously available by invitation only—is now available in a limited access preview. We’re already seeing new applications of Azure OpenAI Service across many industry verticals, from healthcare to financial services.

Applications and industries

Since its release via our API⁠, we’ve been working closely with developers to build on top of Codex. These applications utilize the system’s capabilities in a variety of categories including creativity, learning, productivity and problem solving.

Applications using Codex:

GitHub Copilot⁠(opens in a new window) is an AI pair programmer that provides suggestions for whole lines or entire functions right inside the code editor.

Through tight integration with Codex, GitHub Copilot can convert comments to code, autofill repetitive code, suggest tests and show alternatives.