OpenAI has announced plans to acquire AI agent infrastructure startup Ona, which will be integrated into its Ascendant coding agent, Codex.
Ona provides a fenced-off workshop that tests AI coding agents by replicating the development environment in a safe cloud workspace. Developers can test the agent on real developer tasks, such as writing code, debugging, and making suggestions.
There has been a seismic increase in the number of developers using AI coding agents to suggest and add code in live editors. Ona essentially gives developers another layer of security, with suggestions, debugging, and writing code all housed in a secure environment, before being pushed live.
"Enterprises want powerful agents that can do real work while meeting the security and control requirements of their environments," Thibault Sottiaux, core products lead at OpenAI, said in a press release. "Ona will help us make Codex easier to deploy securely across production workflows for customers operating at the highest standards of trust and scale.”
The deal is yet another move by OpenAI to enhance its enterprise offering, which has become the AI research lab's central focus over the past few weeks as it prepares for a public market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it appears to be a small acquisition.
"We built Ona to give agents cloud environments with the context, control and collaboration enterprises require," said Johannes Landgraf, Co-Founder and CEO at Ona. "Joining OpenAI lets us bring that foundation into Codex, helping organizations deploy agents with confidence and giving humans more agency over their work.”
Codex gaining plaudits in the coding market
Even though Anthropic has gained a sufficient lead in the enterprise market, it looks like recent updates to Codex by OpenAI have drawn many programmers back to GPT. It announced in mid-May that it had reached 4 million weekly users, and that number surpassed 5 million by June. According to The Information, usage has been growing by 5% day over day.
Alongside gaining new fans, OpenAI has also been making Codex more prominent on ChatGPT. Reports suggest that OpenAI may merge the two and its web browser, Atlas, to make a desktop superapp, with AI agent usage front and center.
Enterprises to be the key sector in IPO season
Improvements to its enterprise offering could give OpenAI a meaningful boost heading into IPO season.
SpaceX will kick things off with its enormous $1.75 trillion float on Friday, with Elon Musk's aerospace and AI company saying in its prospectus that is expects the AI side to be generating the most revenue by the end of the decade.
Anthropic looks to be next, filing confidentially for IPO a few weeks before OpenAI. Anthropic recently surpassed OpenAI in valuation with its funding round, but both companies are reportedly targeting a $1 trillion valuation.
Also read: For more on OpenAI’s expanding agent strategy, read our coverage of how its Visa partnership could let ChatGPT agents shop for users.