OpenAI said on Wednesday, Nov. 4, that it will buy Pierre Computer Company, the maker of a service called Code Storage and a set of free tools for programmers. Two of those tools already run inside Codex, OpenAI's AI helper for writing software. Trees lets developers find their way around a project's files, and Diffs shows what changed in a piece of code.
Pierre's products work with Git, the version control system many developers already rely on. Version control is a system that records changes to a set of files over time, so earlier versions can be called up later. OpenAI says it wants to adapt that familiar way of working for teams that now share the job with AI agents, AI that can carry out tasks on its own.
Code Storage lets apps store code and track its history using Git. Pierre says companies such as Lovable and Bolt use it to store the code their products generate. OpenAI says customers can keep using Code Storage after the deal closes while OpenAI works to bring the service's features into Codex. OpenAI says Pierre's open-source projects, free for anyone to use, study, change and share, will stay that way, and that it will keep contributing to them.
The purchase follows OpenAI's own trouble keeping up with the extra work its AI coding tool creates. Two days earlier, OpenAI described Pando, a new system it built to hold its main store of code, after Codex let OpenAI's engineers work on far more changes at once. OpenAI says Pando cut the typical wait to send in a code change by nearly 80%.
According to a news report, the deal puts OpenAI among several companies challenging GitHub, Microsoft's long-established service for hosting code kept with Git, as AI takes on more coding work. Microsoft owns nearly a quarter of OpenAI, the report notes.
OpenAI has not said what it is paying, or when Code Storage's features will reach Codex. The deal still needs regulators' approval, and until it closes the two companies remain separate.