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A user inspecting disk usage discovered that OpenAI's Codex desktop app, now rebranded as part of ChatGPT, stores a 1.7GB cache folder containing full Python and Node.js runtimes alongside native binaries for Poppler, git, and the LibreOffice office suite. Accompanying 'skills' files instruct Codex on how to locate and invoke these bundled tools when handling document-related tasks.
Apple has asked a court for expedited discovery in its lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming the company delayed handing over a former employee's MacBook and that messages show discussion of restoring devices to erase forensic traces. Apple says an inspection of the laptop, turned over in August, revealed a former Apple engineer named Chang Liu had downloaded a confidential circuit schematic and used it while working at OpenAI.
OpenAI has responded to a lawsuit from Apple alleging theft of trade secrets, arguing that most of the claims actually stem from Apple's own weak employee offboarding practices rather than any wrongdoing by OpenAI. The ChatGPT maker is pushing back against the legal action, framing it as a dispute rooted in Apple's internal security failures.
OpenAI reported elevated errors and latency on ChatGPT Work, its enterprise AI agent, for about three hours on Monday, while Microsoft separately confirmed degraded functionality across Exchange Online. Downdetector logged over 1,100 reports for OpenAI products and nearly 4,600 for Microsoft Outlook around 2:24 p.m. ET, though the companies gave no indication the two incidents were related.
OpenAI announced its advertising unit, launched within ChatGPT in February, now generates $1 billion in annualized revenue run rate. The ads are now live in over 40 countries, with self-service access expanding Monday to India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, primarily reaching free-tier and Go subscription users.
OpenAI confirmed a partial outage of ChatGPT Work beginning around 11:04 AM ET on Monday, August 31, causing elevated errors and latency for users on multiple subscription tiers. Plus subscribers appear hit hardest, with Work mode unavailable for some, leaving them unable to start or continue tasks. As of 12:02 PM ET, OpenAI said the issue was still unresolved and a fix was in progress.
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work on July 9th as a paid feature for $20+/month subscribers, and it actually comes in two forms: a cloud-based version accessible via chatgpt.com and mobile apps, and a local version built into the desktop app (formerly Codex) that can access files and run programs on a user's computer. The cloud version, described as the more interesting of the two, adds capabilities not found in standard ChatGPT Chat, including selection among multiple models and reasoning-effort levels.
Sandhya Devanathan, who has led Meta's India and Southeast Asia operations since June 2024 after over a decade at the company, is moving to OpenAI. Based in Singapore, she will report to OpenAI's Asia-Pacific head Kiran Mani and take charge of consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships and regulatory engagement across Southeast Asia and Australia. Meta's India managing director Arun Srinivas will now report directly to the company's Asia-Pacific VP Benjamin Joe.
X's Safety team identified a 200,000-account network of suspected inauthentic Chinese accounts, 200 of which spread AI-generated comics and posts criticizing AI data centers' impact on electricity prices and local power grids. The company said these posts used OpenAI-generated imagery and talking points that echoed illustrations from a June OpenAI report on similar China-linked influence efforts. X has suspended violating accounts but has not disclosed the identities of those involved or detailed the remaining 199,800 accounts' activity.
OpenAI has begun showing advertisements to users on its free tier and the 399-rupee ($4) Go plan in India, one of its biggest markets by user activity. The feature, already active in 38 countries including the US, Japan, South Korea and much of Europe, excludes users who are or are predicted to be under 18.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang defended the company's expanding financial backing of AI startups and data center projects, arguing critics misunderstand the unprecedented capital needs of building and deploying AI. He spoke on CNBC after Nvidia posted stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings, noting the firm has invested in model makers like OpenAI and Anthropic and backed massive compute projects, including a $105 billion Ohio campus and a $500 billion Wall Street financing partnership.
OpenAI expanded its free ChatGPT for Teachers initiative to 55 more school systems across 20 states, adding over 100,000 educators and staff. The company now partners with more than 100 K-12 organizations in 30 states, offering free access and training to over 300,000 educators through June 2028. OpenAI also introduced a 16-state data privacy agreement giving districts a shared framework to assess the tool against student data protection standards.