OpenAI DevDay brings office suite features, app plugins and persistent Codex clouds to ChatGPT

ChatGPT grows a workspace

OpenAI used its DevDay conference in San Francisco on Tuesday to roll out a set of ChatGPT features aimed at office work — territory TechCrunch describes as Microsoft's core business. The centerpiece is Space, a shared workspace inside ChatGPT where coworkers can collaborate with the chatbot and with their Dots, the agent personas OpenAI has launched to carry out tasks on a user's behalf. According to TechCrunch, CEO Sam Altman told attendees that "your pages and files all live together in Space, like they would in a drive," but that "spaces feel alive." He demonstrated giving a page standing instructions, such as watching a team channel and updating itself with what it finds.

Space ships with two companion editors. Pages is a document tool that OpenAI bills as "a new type of document, built for human and agent collaboration," and which TechCrunch frames as its counterpart to Word and Google Docs; users can write, research, generate charts, create images and visualize information in it. Collaborative slides round out the set: TechCrunch reports they can be generated simply by talking about them inside ChatGPT, after which multiple people and agents can edit them and leave comments.

Plugins become app interfaces

OpenAI is also going after applications that could work better when connected to ChatGPT. Per TechCrunch, developers can now build app-like experiences using plugin extensions, which give a tool a dedicated home in the ChatGPT sidebar rather than leaving it buried in a conversation. Extensions can include interactive panels so users can operate a tool mid-chat, along with file viewers for whatever formats the developer's product supports.

Distribution is getting attention too. OpenAI introduced a Plugin Creator tool, a redesigned directory submission flow with clearer feedback, and improved ranking and recommendations both in the directory and when plugins surface during conversations. Users approve a plugin's access needs individually. ChatGPT Sites, the lightweight website builder, can now host plugins, so someone can share an app with colleagues who then use it with their own connected data and permissions. OpenAI is also adding support for the proposed MCP Events specification, which would let plugins trigger automations based on events in a connected app, and says automations are easier to add and manage.

Codex gets reusable cloud environments

Developers saw one of the larger overhauls. Codex, OpenAI's software engineering agent, can now run from wherever a developer needs it — a computer, a phone or the cloud — using reusable development environments that persist across devices. According to TechCrunch, this replaces the earlier model of isolated remote sandboxes: environments are now persistent and configurable, helping tasks start faster and giving teams a shared workspace with approved settings and permissions.

The Codex CLI was refreshed with voice control for starting and directing tasks, a new /agents view for delegating and tracking several tasks at once, and improvements to prompt editing, session resumes and worktrees, plus a cleaner terminal interface for long sessions. A new code review experience in the ChatGPT desktop app lets users read summaries, explore changes and ask Codex about potential problems before commenting on GitHub pull requests or GitLab merge requests, and automatic reviews can run an initial pass while the user is away from the machine.

Security got its own bundle, Codex Security Cloud, which can scan entire GitHub repositories on demand, on a schedule or whenever new commits arrive. Codex then investigates findings, removes duplicates and prepares fixes in the cloud even when the user's laptop is closed, and the toolset includes access to models from OpenAI's Daybreak Blue cybersecurity initiative without a separate application.

API updates

On the platform side, OpenAI announced a Decisions API for real-time decision-making, which TechCrunch reports uses a model called Luna to answer a set of user-defined questions with predefined answers. An updated Agents API adds computer use support and can use Amazon's Bedrock Managed Agents to build OpenAI agents that run entirely on AWS.

Why it matters

The workspace launches put OpenAI in direct competition with its closest partner. As TechCrunch notes, OpenAI has worked closely with Microsoft from the start, yet Space, Pages and slides sit squarely where Word, PowerPoint and Google Docs live. The pressure cuts both ways: Microsoft and Salesforce have spent the past year releasing wave after wave of AI products as the software industry scrambles to keep up. The plugin and Codex changes point in the same direction, turning ChatGPT from a chat interface into a platform where apps, agents and now documents reside. The question for rivals is no longer just who ships the best model, but whose environment people actually end up working in.