OpenAI's Codex coding agent is reportedly testing a new "Ultra-Fast mode" that could crank up code generation speed by five times. The pain point of AI-assisted programming has always been the wait: the model's brain works fast enough, but developers end up staring at the screen while it plods through each step. If this 5x speed boost is real, using an agent to write code might start feeling like actual pair programming with a human.
https://twitter.com/mark_k/status/2053770170259169634
But developers are already rolling their eyes. Codex had a "Quick mode" before, and it was anything but quick. It turned out to be more of a queue-jumping feature, hogging server resources at the expense of ordinary users who weren't paying extra. One tipster joked that the original mode was so slow that OpenAI has no choice but to slap an "Ultra-Fast" sticker on it this time around.
Codex is also expanding its reach with a Chrome extension that lets it control your browser, handling messy browser-based tasks behind the scenes.