OpenAI acquires Ona to give its Codex coding tool the ability to run tasks over hours or days, closing the gap with Anthropic's Claude Code.

What happened: OpenAI is acquiring Ona, a startup founded in Germany in 2020 that builds AI agents and cloud development environments. After integration, Codex will be able to continue coding tasks over hours or days even when a user's laptop is closed, with agents running in each company's own cloud while OpenAI provides the underlying models.

Why it matters: Codex is used by more than 5 million people per week—a 400 percent increase from the beginning of the year. Claude Code, made by competitor Anthropic, is currently considered the leader for long-running coding tasks, so this acquisition addresses a capability gap OpenAI needs to close.

What to watch: The deal is subject to regulatory approvals. This is OpenAI's second coding-focused acquisition in recent months, following its March purchase of Astral (maker of Python tools uv and Ruff).