OpenAI's latest offering could come in handy for the open-laptop walkers. The company is making it easier to remotely control their Codex AI coding app while on the go.
The company on Thursday announced Codex for mobile phones, available in the ChatGPT app. While users will not be able to program directly on their phones, they can prompt Codex to start vibe coding a new project or manage and view the agent's actions while it continues to run remotely on their computer or Mac Mini.
"A quick approval, answer, or course correction can be the difference between work moving forward, sitting idle, or heading in the wrong direction," Codex product manager Hannah Koch wrote to Business Insider.
Using the ChatGPT mobile app, users can see threads, review outputs, approve commands, and change models.
In plain terms, that means more remote control of Codex, which could lead vibe coders to leave their laptops at home or the office more often.
"As agents take on longer-running work, a new rhythm for collaboration is emerging," an OpenAI blog post reads. "To keep work moving, you need to be able to easily answer a question, review what Codex found, change direction, approve what comes next, or add a new idea."
The advent of AI coding tools has led to a rise in people walking around with their laptops slightly open so that their local Codex agent can continue running. The AI coders previously told Business Insider that they're bringing these open computers to offices, schools, and ice rinks. (Of course, as many techies have pointed out, there are other ways to keep a laptop running while shut.)
But the trend quickly became a meme, one that OpenAI joined in on earlier this month while teasing "iykyk but we may be in for a treat soon 👀."
"If the machine goes to sleep, or you're not nearby to approve next steps, the work stops," Koch wrote of the "open-laptop trend."
Ahead of its Thursday announcement, OpenAI also poked fun at the laptops-ajar trend in a video the company posted to its developers' X account. The video showed several laptops opened just enough to stay running.
"Step away from your laptop," OpenAI developers wrote on X. "Keep building with Codex on your phone."
Koch wrote that bringing Codex to mobile "lets people leave their laptop at home."
"With Codex running in a dedicated or remote environment, the work no longer has to rely on an open laptop at all," she wrote.
