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by Suhasini Srinivasaragavan
20 Mar 2026
Image: © Pavel Iarunichev/Stock.adobe.com
The new unified desktop app comes at a time when OpenAI’s popularity is being challenged by Anthropic.
OpenAI is planning to combine its AI chatbot, coding tool and web browser into a desktop ‘superapp’, multiple news publications have reported.
According to sources, the move is meant to counter fierce competition from the AI giant’s rivals, including Anthropic, which is fast encroaching into OpenAI’s customer base.
As of November 2025, Anthropic had more than 300,000 enterprise customers, while OpenAI had more than 1m. However, recent data shows that Anthropic is now capturing more than 73pc of all spending among companies buying AI tools for the first time, while OpenAI is down to around 27pc.
Meanwhile, Anthropic’s chatbot Claude also overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded app in the US last month after Anthropic began engaging in a public feud with the country’s Department of Defense over AI safety concerns.
OpenAI’s new desktop app will combine ChatGPT, coding tool Codex and Atlas, an AI-powered web browser launched last October, sources said. It is unclear when the unified app is expected to launch.
According to sources, OpenAI’s head of applications Fidji Simo will be leading this effort, while company president Greg Brockman will also work on the new product. ChatGPT will continue to be provided as a standalone app.
OpenAI is also attempting to strengthen Codex with its acquisition of Astral, a start-up that makes Python tools for developers, with popular examples including ‘uv’, ‘Ruff’ and ‘ty’.
With the acquisition, OpenAI plans to use Astral’s tools and expertise to accelerate work on Codex and expand its capabilities across the software development lifecycle.
Codex has already seen considerable user growth since the start of the year, with more than 2m weekly active users, OpenAI said. It competes with Anthropic’s widely popular Claude Code and its new tool Cowork, designed to be a simpler version of Claude Code.
Astral is the latest in a string of acquisitions OpenAI has made in recent months. Earlier in March, the company agreed to buy AI security start-up Promptfoo. In January, it purchased AI health-tech Torch. Last month, the company poached the founder of the viral OpenClaw project, Peter Steinberger, to help innovate for its AI agents.
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Related: AI, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Anthropic, M&As
Suhasini Srinivasaragavan is a sci-tech reporter for Silicon Republic
editorial@siliconrepublic.com
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