OpenAI Acquires Ona to Power Codex with Persistent Cloud AI Agents
OpenAI is set to acquire Ona, a cloud infrastructure company, in a move that will significantly extend the capabilities of its growing Codex platform. The deal, announced on June 11, 2026, brings Ona’s secure cloud execution technology directly into the Codex ecosystem to support what OpenAI describes as the next phase of agentic AI work.
Codex now serves more than 5 million users weekly, a figure that represents a 400% increase from earlier this year. What started as a tool for software developers has expanded into a broader productivity platform that takes users from an initial request all the way through to a finished result. As its ambitions grow, so does the need for infrastructure that can keep pace.
The core problem Ona solves is persistence. Much of Codex’s most valuable work now unfolds over hours or even days, not just minutes, and that kind of sustained effort cannot depend on a single device or an active session. Ona’s technology provides secure, reproducible cloud environments where AI agents can continue working inside a customer’s own infrastructure even after a laptop is closed. The company has already helped 2 million developers move software development from local machines into the cloud, and it shares multiple customers with OpenAI.
For enterprises, this is about more than just convenience. OpenAI Codex persistent cloud agents will need to meet strict organizational standards around data security, governance, and access controls. Ona’s customer-controlled execution model addresses exactly that, allowing agents to operate within a company’s own cloud boundary while OpenAI handles the intelligence and orchestration layer behind the scenes.
Thibault Sottiaux, Core Products Lead at OpenAI, said enterprises want powerful agents capable of real work without sacrificing the security and control their environments demand. Johannes Landgraf, Co-Founder and CEO of Ona, framed the acquisition as a natural fit, noting that agents need more than intelligence and that Ona was built to give them a trusted workspace with the context, control, and collaboration that enterprise deployment requires.
The acquisition remains subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Until the deal closes, OpenAI and Ona will continue to operate independently. Once complete, the Ona team will join OpenAI to work alongside the Codex team, with a focus on scaling secure, persistent enterprise capabilities to organizations worldwide.
The move follows OpenAI’s recently announced partnership with Oracle and comes as the company pushes deeper into enterprise territory amid its confidential S-1 filing with the SEC.
