OpenAI: how agents are transforming work — Codex 5 million weekly users, 400% growth

Codex: 5 million users and 400% growth in six months

OpenAI published a comprehensive report on the ways in which AI agents — systems that autonomously plan and execute tasks on behalf of users — are reshaping everyday work. The standout figure: Codex, OpenAI’s agent for writing and analyzing code, has 5 million weekly active users, representing 400% growth in 2026 compared to the end of 2025. The API infrastructure powering these agents processes more than 15 billion tokens per minute.

What share of work do agents handle?

The share of requests replacing more than 30 minutes of human work rose from a low level in December to 80.6% in May 2026. That means four out of five interactions with Codex today resolve tasks that would take a person half an hour or more — many times higher than was the case just six months earlier.

Who is actually using AI agents?

Growth is not limited to developers. Non-developers account for approximately 20% of Codex users and are growing three times faster than developers. Individual non-developers recorded 137× growth, and organizational users who are not development teams grew 189× over the observed period.

By department, Research (+56×) and Customer Support (+32×) lead the way, confirming that the agent paradigm is spreading far beyond engineering teams.

Why this changes the AI industry picture

While earlier LLM tools functioned as advanced chatbots responding to queries, agents take on extended, multi-step tasks. The number of users and the depth of usage together signal a transition from experimental adoption to operational integration in business processes — and at timescales that exceed nearly all analyst forecasts.

---

Source: OpenAI. Full text originally published at openai.com.