OpenAI Preps Codex Bot to Chase Grok, Weighs Muse Rival

OpenAI is building features to counter SpaceXAI's Grok Bot 'teammates' and has internally discussed a personal AI assistant to answer Meta's Muse, The Information reported. The catch-up leans on OpenClaw, the open-source agent whose creator OpenAI recently hired.

SpaceXAI shipped Grok Bot on August 11, giving each bot its own persistent Linux VM with a browser, filesystem and terminal. The company's own line is 'AI teammates you can give real work to.' Meta launched Muse on September 8 as a personal AI agent, rolling out on iOS, Android and muse.ai. Both put persistent, task-doing agents in front of consumers before OpenAI had a comparable product on the shelf.

OpenAI's near-term answer is a product temporarily called Codex Bot, built on OpenClaw and, per the reporting, 'more similar to Grok Bot than the current ChatGPT Work.' Sam Altman said the 'major new thing' scheduled for this week has been pushed to next. The Muse rival is still at the internal-discussion stage, and draws on Peter Steinberger, the OpenClaw creator Altman said was hired 'to drive the next generation of personal agents.'

Steinberger, who chose OpenAI over a Meta bid both sides pitched 'in the billions,' framed the move on his blog: 'I'm joining OpenAI to work on bringing agents to everyone. OpenClaw will move to a foundation and stay open and independent.' Muse's own launch has already run into platform friction our tracker has been following, with Amazon blocking the agent from shopping on Amazon.com.