OpenAI Acquires Alex Team

OpenAI has acquired the team behind Alex, a popular AI-powered coding assistant for Apple's Xcode. Alex, backed by Y-Combinator, allowed developers to integrate AI models directly into Xcode, streamlining workflows and boosting productivity. Its features included autocomplete, codebase search, and automated error fixing.

The Alex team will join OpenAI's Codex division, which focuses on building advanced AI coding tools. While service will continue for existing users, new downloads of Alex will cease on October 1st, with no further feature releases planned.

This acquisition demonstrates OpenAI's commitment to expanding its AI capabilities and integrating AI more deeply into the software development lifecycle. It follows OpenAI's recent acquisition of Statsig, highlighting a strategy of acquiring talent and technology to advance AI across various domains.