Thibault Sottiaux, the lead of the OpenAI Codex project, stated that future models will be significantly better at deleting code and simplifying it.

The statement did not provide model names, launch dates, or code deletion ratios. He focused on two capabilities: writing less and shortening existing code. This statement addresses the amount of code being generated by programming agents, rather than a list of new features.

Sottiaux publicly identifies as the head of the Codex project, which includes about 30 research and product engineers, covering command line, editor plugins, and cloud agents. Almost all software engineers at OpenAI use Codex, and code reviews primarily go through this agent. In previous interviews, he referred to complex scaffolding as something to cope with rather than expand, advocating for gradually removing external processes as models become stronger.

This product line has already undergone a reduction. In May 2026, he announced that to simplify Codex cluster management, gpt-5.2 and gpt-5.3-Codex would be removed from Codex logged in via ChatGPT starting June 2. The default model for the free plan was changed to gpt-5.5, while the old models remain in the API. The previous reduction involved optional models, not the lines of code in user repositories.

He also mentioned in another context that maintenance costs have significantly decreased compared to two or three years ago, with review, deployment, and regression interception being as automated as possible, allowing individual changes to be pushed to about 1 billion users on the same day. If the code deletion capability keeps pace, it will target the volume and branching complexity left after rapid integration.

This is an expectation of capability, not an order or pricing announcement. The buyers are teams that have already integrated Codex into continuous integration and repositories, while the sellers remain OpenAI's models and computing power. The event is driven by code bloat approaching maintainability limits. Beneficiaries are small teams that can delegate refactoring and deletion to agents, while those relying on counting lines for pricing and still building scaffolding tools are under pressure. No new funding or rate disclosures were made.

Source: Public Information