ChatGPT will die because of this
Today I will explain why the ChatGPT application will die, and why that is actually a good thing for us. OpenAI quietly ships a second app called Codex that runs on the exact same brain as ChatGPT, at the same price and on the same subscription, but with a far better body around it. If you already pay for ChatGPT, this walkthrough shows you the upgrade you did not know you had.
1. Meet Codex, OpenAI's second app (0:13)
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has a second application called Codex. It was meant initially for developers: you could only use it in the terminal, which was not very friendly. But now it has a fantastic desktop application, and it is a flat-out replacement for ChatGPT.
Think of Codex as ChatGPT's bigger brother. It shares the exact same brains and has better capabilities. That move from an unfriendly terminal tool to a polished desktop app is the whole story here, and it is why the rest of this walkthrough exists.
2. It's not the brain, it's the body (0:32)
Both apps use the exact same brain. And in AI, what is important is not the brain you use, it is the body you build around it. You could even have a dumber brain, but as long as you connect it well to all of the applications you use on your computer, it will outperform an isolated, better brain.
Keep that principle in mind, because it explains everything that follows.
3. The ChatGPT app has stalled (0:57)
Open the ChatGPT application and you can see that things have not really moved in probably a few months. The reason is simple: OpenAI's focus right now is on developing the Codex application, which already works fantastically.
To be fair, ChatGPT still has its default strengths. GPT image generation is still the best one on the market by far, and you still have deep research, projects and so on. But the energy is clearly elsewhere, and that is exactly why the deprecation is good news for us: the replacement already exists, it is more capable, and it costs nothing extra.
4. Same price, same subscription, a Mac-native app (1:30)
Instead of using ChatGPT on the web, download the Codex desktop application. For the exact same price and the same subscription, you get access to all of it.
The team behind the app includes people who were among the founders of macOS, so it integrates fantastically with the whole Mac and Apple ecosystem.
5. Pick your model and your speed (1:57)
In Codex, on top of choosing the brain you use, meaning the model itself, you can also choose the speed at which it responds. You can push the speed up to one point five times the speed of GPT 5.5, something you cannot do in ChatGPT.
You can generate images too. Everything you can do with ChatGPT, you can do with Codex, and so much more.
6. Plugins and better connectors (2:20)
Where ChatGPT has applications, Codex has entire libraries of plugins available to you. And the connection between these applications and Codex is of better quality than ChatGPT's, because ChatGPT's connectors were just the first generation of AI integrations. We do not know yet what the next level UI or UX will look like for this type of application, but this is clearly a step forward.
7. Automations with computer use (2:42)
On top of everything above, you get automations. I am not just talking about daily briefs from your emails or Slack. These can be end-to-end workflows, completely automated with computer use, set up with natural language. Your computer doing the work, not just a chat window summarizing things.
8. Long-running tasks: set a goal and walk away (3:00)
Codex is fantastic at running long tasks, and this is the capacity I really enjoy: pursuing goals. Once you set a goal, it does not work for one to five minutes. It works for ten minutes, thirty, even a couple of hours. Instead of babysitting a chat window, you hand over a goal and come back to finished work. Just imagine the possibilities, and I highly recommend you give it a try.
9. Why ChatGPT gets deprecated (3:22)
This is why the ChatGPT application will most likely get deprecated. What really matters to OpenAI is the GPT model itself and driving adoption. And right now, Codex is simply the better alternative to ChatGPT, for the same price, from the same provider. The brain stays; the old body gets retired.
Over my next videos I will be showing you how to make the most out of Codex, so if you make the switch now, you will be ahead of the curve when everyone else is forced to.
Where to go next
If the brain and body framing clicked, I break down the full mental model across the whole AI landscape in What Claude Code really is. And for the equivalent long-running goal workflow on Claude's side, watch Make Claude Code Work for Hours.
