OpenAI Is Merging ChatGPT's Chat and Work Tabs, and Codex Will Share Your Token Allowance

If you've ever opened the ChatGPT desktop app and paused for a second to remember which tab you were supposed to be in, OpenAI has noticed. According to an email OpenAI sent to users, reported by TechCrunch, the company is getting ready to merge the Chat and Work tabs inside ChatGPT into one space.

What's changing

Right now the desktop app splits things up: there's ChatGPT and there's Codex, and inside ChatGPT there's a Chat tab for conversation and a Work tab for getting tasks done. The new setup folds Chat and Work together, so you can start by bouncing an idea around and then have ChatGPT actually carry it out without switching views. OpenAI's examples include pulling in files and plugins, building a website, putting together a presentation, or handling tasks on the web while you watch and steer.

A few details worth knowing:

• It starts with select users for feedback before a wider rollout.
• Codex stays separate in the desktop app.
• ChatGPT and Codex will now draw from the same token allowance. OpenAI says most people won't notice, but heavy users of certain models may hit resets more often.

My take

Fewer tabs is a genuine quality-of-life win. Splitting "talk" and "do" always felt like an internal product boundary leaking into the interface. It also follows Anthropic, which put Claude's chat and Cowork modes on one screen in September, so this looks like where AI assistants are heading in general.

The shared allowance is the part I'd watch. If you lean on Codex for coding and ChatGPT for everything else, both now come out of one bucket, and that could change how far a subscription stretches.

Source: TechCrunch