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"description": "OpenAI updates Codex app with a redesigned onboarding flow, new connectors, annotation tools, and hints at remote desktop and side chat features.",
"path": "/openai-updates-codex-and-prepares-remote-control-feature/",
"publishedAt": "2026-04-30T23:54:43.000Z",
"site": "https://www.testingcatalog.com",
"tags": [
"pic.twitter.com/re5Mlb13Qj",
"April 30, 2026",
"avatars",
"pic.twitter.com/9tywlE5GAp",
"pic.twitter.com/1T8RDXUvjD",
"Conway",
"@ajambrosino",
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"textContent": "OpenAI has rolled out a Codex app refresh that extends the desktop client beyond its origins as a coding-only command center, moving toward broader white-collar workflows. The update introduces a reworked onboarding flow designed to cater to a wider range of professions, along with prompts to connect email, calendar, and Google Drive. Enhancements in speed and design have been made, and browser and computer-use capabilities now include annotation support, allowing users to mark up rendered pages and artifacts directly.\n\n> Codex for everything:\n>\n> - Dynamic UI for the task at hand\n> - 20% faster computer & browser use\n> - Even better slides and sheets\n> - Annotate in browser, artifacts, and code\n> - Easier to get started\n> - Cleaner design across the app\n> - Performance improvements\n> - (no clunky… pic.twitter.com/re5Mlb13Qj\n>\n> — Andrew Ambrosino (@ajambrosino) April 30, 2026\n\nHowever, customers in Europe will not experience the full range of features, browser and computer-use functionality has been disabled in some regions without a public explanation. This mirrors a carve-out OpenAI already maintains for the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland on its macOS computer-use plugin.\n\nBeneath the surface, the build includes several unannounced additions. A new Connections tab in Settings reveals an SSH option, enabling users to pair Codex with a remote desktop and instruct the agent to operate local apps remotely, a significant step toward cross-machine agency.\n\nA Keyboard panel for remapping shortcuts is also included, and the previously spotted \"avatars\" feature has been quietly renamed to \"pets.\"\n\n> A new feature sneaked in the Codex app’s latest update. You can now do /side (or use the ... menu) to spawn a side chat! Useful when you're deep in a thread and want to have a side question in the current context! pic.twitter.com/9tywlE5GAp\n>\n> — Thomas Ricouard (@Dimillian) April 30, 2026\n\nTwo slash commands complete the set: `/side` opens a parallel ChatGPT conversation in a side panel for auxiliary questions while a primary task is running, and `/goal` , revealed through recent GitHub commits, appears to allow users to assign Codex a longer-term objective, such as a KPI to work toward continuously.\n\n> /goal also lands in Codex CLI 0.128.0.\n>\n> Our take on the Ralph loop: keep a goal alive across turns. Don't stop until it's achieved.\n>\n> Built by my co-worker and OpenAI mentor Eric Traut, aka the Pyright guy. One of the GOATs I get to work with daily.\n>\n> — Felipe Coury 🦀 (@fcoury) April 30, 2026\n\n> Codex goal feature seems cool\n>\n> Looks like you can give Codex a goal and it’ll continue to work, plan, and test until it’s done?\n>\n> I’m just reading the commits here but that’s what I think it is? pic.twitter.com/1T8RDXUvjD\n>\n> — Max Weinbach (@mweinbach) April 30, 2026\n\nStrategically, this aligns with OpenAI's direction for Codex over recent months. The product is being repositioned as the super-app tier of ChatGPT, alongside Atlas and ChatGPT. The push for connectors, automation layers, and skills architecture all indicate a Codex that aims to be the operating surface for any knowledge worker, not just engineers. The `/goal` command, in particular, fits neatly into this strategy, moving toward the always-on agent paradigm that competitors like Anthropic's Conway are also pursuing.",
"title": "OpenAI updates Codex and prepares Remote Control feature",
"updatedAt": "2026-05-01T00:25:28.321Z"
}