OpenAI is betting the future of software engineering on AI agents.

On the “OpenAI Podcast,” which aired on Monday, cofounder and president Greg Brockman and Codex engineering lead Thibault Sottiaux outlined a vision of vast networks of autonomous AI agents supervised by humans but capable of working continuously in the cloud as full-fledged collaborators.

“We have strong conviction that the way that this is headed is large populations of agents somewhere in the cloud that we as humanity, as people, teams, organizations supervise and steer in order to produce great economical value,” Sottiaux said.

“So if we’re going a couple of years from now, this is what it’s going to look like,” Sottiaux added. “It’s millions of agents working in our and companies’ data centers in order to do useful work.”

OpenAI launched GPT-5 Codex on Monday. Unlike earlier iterations, OpenAI said that GPT-5 Codex can run for hours at a time on complex software projects, such as massive code refactorings, while integrating directly with developers’ workflows in cloud environments.

OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil said on tech entrepreneur Azeem Azhar’s podcast “Exponential View” that internal tools like Codex-based code review systems increased efficiency for its engineers.

This doesn’t mean human coders would be rendered obsolete. Despite successful examples of “vibe coding,” it is obvious when a person using the AI agent doesn’t know how to code, engineers and computer science professors previously told Business Insider.

Brockman said that oversight will still be critical as AI agents take on more ambitious roles. OpenAI has been strategizing since 2017 on how humans or even less sophisticated AIs can supervise more powerful AIs, he said, in order to maintain oversight and “be in the driver’s seat.”

“Figuring out this entire system and then making it multi-agent and steerable by individuals, teams, organizations, and aligning that with the whole intent of organizations, this is where it’s headed for me,” said Sottiaux. “It’s a bit nebulous, but it’s also very exciting.”

• Financial Controller, Procurement, Travel, and Payments agents act within policy – giving finance more control and eliminating busywork.
• For employees, forms, tickets, policies, reports and finance jargon are replaced with natural language conversation.
• Payhawk’s Fall ’25 Product Edition also includes global payments at 0.3% FX in 115 currencies.

LONDON, Sept. 16, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Payhawk, the finance orchestration and spend management platform, today announced its Fall ’25 Product Edition, expanding its AI Office of the CFO stack. The release brings a coordinated set of AI agents — Financial Controller, Procurement, Travel, and Payments — that complete everyday finance work, following the roles, policies, and approvals finance already sets with a full audit trail.

Employees make natural-language requests, and the agents guide them end-to-end through each process, collecting approvals in the background. Over time, agents learn preferences and anticipate needs, so tasks are completed faster and with less wasted effort.

“Enterprises don’t need more chat, they need outcomes,” said Hristo Borisov, CEO and Co-founder of Payhawk. “The majority of agents on the market today lack enterprise capabilities to be adopted at scale, such as permissions, policies, multi-tenancy, audit trails, and data security standards – all absolutely critical when it comes to business payments. Our AI agents act within your controls and finish real finance tasks, so the easy thing for employees is also the right thing for the business.”

Invisible orchestration by design

Payhawk’s agents operate within existing roles, permissions, and policies, keeping data in-platform and logging every action for auditability. Finance teams gain control and visibility, while repetitive busywork is eliminated.

What each аgent handles

• Financial Controller Agent — Speeds up month-end closing by chasing receipts and uploading documents from vendor portals automatically, flagging anomalies, and escalating reminders around close. Expenses are submitted 2x faster.
• Procurement Agent — Employees say what they need; the agent gathers context, applies budgets and policy, routes approvals, increases card limits or creates purchase orders — no forms, fewer tickets and reminders. Request to purchase time reduced by 60%.
• Travel Agent — Books within policy via natural language based on user preferences, then auto-creates a trip report and groups expenses for one-click approval and ERP export. Saves up to 90 minutes per trip.
• Payments Agent — Deflects approximately 40% of helpdesk work for your finance team by giving instant answers on failed transactions, blocked cards, pending reimbursements or funding issues and proposes compliant next steps.

Beyond the release of the AI Office of the CFO, Payhawk’s Fall ’25 Product Edition includes global payments at 0.3% FX in 115 currencies in partnership with JP Morgan Payments, enhanced role/permission controls, and additional platform improvements.

Payhawk will be hosting a product showcase on October 2nd 2025. To sign up, visit https://payhawk.com/editions/fall-2025.

About Payhawk

Payhawk is the finance orchestration platform that unifies global spend management with intelligent automation and real-time payments. Our solution combines corporate cards, expense management, accounts payable, and procure-to-pay in a single platform — eliminating manual processes that slow companies down.

Unlike solutions that force a trade-off between powerful controls and great user experience, Payhawk delivers both, enabling finance teams to drive efficiency and growth while maintaining control. Headquartered in London with 9 offices across Europe and the US, Payhawk serves mid-market and enterprise companies in 32+ countries. Learn more at www.payhawk.com.

Georgi Ivanov
Senior Communications Manager
georgi.ivanov@payhawk.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e27967d8-aa3f-4532-a4f4-d36c2a530404