OpenAI is developing a persistent agent feature for its coding tool Codex, enabling the AI to continue programming autonomously until explicitly told to stop. This functionality relies on thread automations that preserve context for ongoing tasks and a /goal mode allowing users to set specific milestones. Internal tests showed that agents could run for approximately 25 hours on complex tasks. OpenAI acquired Ona in June 2026 to build the cloud infrastructure needed to maintain continuous execution environments. The risks remain real: an agent running autonomously for 25 hours can generate as much bad code as good code.
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