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On Thursday, OpenAI released GPT-5.3-Codex, a new model that extends its Codex coding agent beyond writing and reviewing code to performing a much wider range of work tasks. The release comes as competition continues to heat up among AI companies vying for market share in the AI-powered coding tools space. OpenAI says GPT-5.3 combines the coding performance of GPT-5.2-Codex with the reasoning and professional-knowledge capabilities of GPT-5.2, while running 25% faster. This allows GPT-5.3-Codex to handle long-running tasks that involve research, tool use such as web search or database calls, and complex execution and planning across both general work tasks and software development. Codex has reached over 1 million developers, OpenAI claims. And while Anthropics Claude Code has also seen rapid adoption, head-to-head data comparing the two tools remains scarce. SemiAnalysis reports that 4% of GitHub public commits, or new code uploaded to repositories, are currently being authored by Claude Code, and projects that figure could reach 20% or more by the end of 2026. Benchmark one-upsmanship OpenAI says GPT-5.3-Codex now has the best score of any model on SWE-Bench Pro, which evaluates real-world software engineering across four programming languages. Same goes for Terminal-Bench 2.0, which measures the terminal skills coding agents need. Anthropic says its new Claude Opus 4.6 model, also announced Thursday, achieved top scores on several industry benchmarks including Humanity’s Last Exam (complex multidisciplinary reasoning), GDPval-AA (economically valuable knowledge work), and BrowseComp (hard-to-find information search). OpenAI says its new model is capable of taking into account larger bodies of information while working on a task, as well as thinking about those tasks for longer periods without human intervention. In testing, OpenAI says it saw GPT-5.3-Codex autonomously iterate on game development over millions of tokens using generic prompts like “fix the bug” or “improve the game.” Similarly, Anthropic says its new Opus 4.6 model can comprehend larger code bases and make more thoughtful decisions about how to add new code. OpenAI says GPT-5.3-Codex is built to support the full software lifecycle, including debugging, deploying, and monitoring code, as well as writing product requirement documents and conducting research. Beyond coding to knowledge work The same agentic capabilities that expand Codexs coding skill can apply to tasks well outside the realm of software development, OpenAI says, extending to things like creating slide decks, analyzing data in spreadsheets. On GDPval, an OpenAI evaluation measuring performance on well-specified knowledge-work tasks across 44 occupations, GPT-5.3-Codex matches GPT-5.2 while adding stronger coding capabilities. On OSWorld-Verified, which tests computer use in a visual desktop environment, GPT-5.3-Codex achieved 64.7% accuracy compared to 38.2% for its predecessor. Anthropic has taken its Claude Code tool in the same directionto help a wider pool of information workers with a far broader set of business tasks. GPT-5.3-Codex is the first model OpenAI classifies as “High capability” for cybersecurity-related tasks under its Preparedness Framework, and the first the company has directly trained to identify software vulnerabilities. OpenAI is committing $10 million in API credits to accelerate cyber defense, particularly for open source software and critical infrastructure systems. GPT-5.3-Codex is now available to paid ChatGPT subscribers in the Codex app, command line interface, IDE extension, and web. OpenAI says it is working to enable API access (used by enterprise and independent developers) to the model soon.
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HBO Max’s Heated Rivalry, a gay hockey romance TV series based on the Game Changers book series by Rachel Reid, is the breakout hit no one saw coming. With almost no promotion, it quickly became one of the most talked-about streaming TV shows in the U.S. after HBO Max purchased the rights from Canada’s Crave network this November, turning its two costars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, into overnight celebrities. What’s unique about Heated Rivalry is just how fast its popularity has spread, and how devoted its massive fan base is. From the week it debuted to its season finale six episodes later, its viewership grew from 30 million to 324 million streaming minutes, according to the data and research firm Luminate, per The New York Times. The story is about two rival hockey players who fall in love: Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov. It is a slow-burn romance spanning a decade, and includes explicit sexual sceneswhich some attribute to the great success of the series. Writer-director-producer Jacob Tierney has described the show as pure queer joy. Now, those die-hard romance fansmostly women and gay menhave an unlikely new interest: ice hockey. It sets the stage for what looks like the newest audience crossover from entertainment to sports, after Taylor Swift fans found football a few years ago when the singer began dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (now her fiancé). Swift is estimated to have generated over $1 billion in publicity and revenue for the NFL, according to a MarketWatch report. The Heated Rivalry effect Turning to ice hockey, ticket reseller SeatGeek says interest in hockey has surged, thanks to Heated Rivalry. And that could translate into increased viewing for the Olympics. The Winter Olympics always cause interest to spike for hockey, and this time demand is already at a fever pitch following the breakout success of Heated Rivalry, Chris Leyden, SeatGeeks director of growth marketing, tells Fast Company. After the shows first episodes aired, we saw weekly hockey ticket sales on SeatGeek jump more than 20%, with revenue up over 30%, Leyden adds. Its certainly great for the NHL that hockey is top of mind for the broader American public for such an extended period. Building on that momentum, less than two weeks ago, Heated Rivalry costars Williams and Storrie carried the Olympic torch in Feltre, Italy, in the run-up to the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, wearing matching Olympic tracksuits as they made their way through the crowded streets on the 49th leg of the torch relay. (The Games begin Friday, February 6, broadcasting on NBC and streaming on Peacock.) Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) tells Fast Company there is “strong anticipation for the Olympic ice hockey tournaments, particularly with the return of NHL players,” adding that ice hockey “is traditionally among the most popular and followed sports at the Olympic Winter Games. And in Bostonwhere Heated Rivalry‘s Russian character Ilya Rozanov plays for the fictional Boston Raiders teamsome fans are getting ready to watch the Olympics. “I read the books, watched the series, and went from Heated Rivalry to actually learning about ice hockey, and watching YouTube videos about the history of the game,” Rodrigo Pérez Ortega, a science journalism fellow at MIT, tells Fast Company. I looked at the schedule and the teams for the Olympics hockey . . . I will watch them, especially womens hockey,” he says, adding that “I think in general, a lot of womens sports are under appreciated.”
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E-Commerce
A federal jury in Arizona has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million in a lawsuit brought by a passenger who said was sexually assaulted by one of the ridesharing apps drivers. The case marks the first time that Uber has been found liable for the safety of its drivers in a sexual assault case. The plaintiff, Oklahoma resident Jaylynn Dean, sued Uber in 2023. Dean alleged that an Uber driver sexually assaulted her that November during a late ride to a hotel in Tempe, Arizona. Deans legal team argued that Uber avoided extra safety measures like more extensive background checks and in-ride cameras because while those steps could protect riders from sexual assault, they might also stifle the ridesharing apps growth. The jury determined that the driver was an apparent agent of Uber, but stopped short of finding the ridesharing company liable for design defects in its app or negligence related to the incident. The jury did not order the company to pay punitive damages. In a statement to Fast Company, an Uber spokesperson highlighted that the $8.5 million was far less than the $144 million in damages sought. This verdict affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety, the spokesperson said. We will continue to put safety at the heart of everything we do. Uber plans to appeal the verdict. Internal documents revealed during the trial also showed that the apps safety algorithm flagged Deans ride as higher risk before it began, information that was not passed along to the passenger. After the assault, Dean contacted police and Uber, which removed the driver from the platform. I want to make sure it doesnt happen to other women, Dean said during witness testimony. Im doing this for other women who thought the same thing I did, that they were making the safe and smart choice but that, you know, there are risks of being assaulted. A long history of concerns Deans case may be the first time that Uber has been found liable in a case involving the sexual assault of a passenger, but the company faces more than 3,000 similar lawsuits. Her case is not determinative for future cases, but will serve as a test trial for the backlog of other sexual assault and misconduct lawsuits that the ridesharing company faces. Late last year, a San Francisco jury found that Uber was not liable in a different sexual assault case involving a driver and a female passenger. Uber insists that it has taken every measure to make its rides safer, but court records reported by The New York Times last year paint a picture of a company that stopped short of implementing some safety programs it knew would help protect riders. Our purpose/goal is not to be the police, an internal 2021 Uber brainstorming document stated. Our bar is much lower and our goal is to protect the company and set the tolerable risk level for our operations. Concerns about rider safety and sexual assault have followed Uber for years. According to the recently revealed court records, the company received one report of sexual misconduct or sexual assault in the U.S. every eight minutes between 2017 and 2022. During that period, more than 400,000 Uber rides prompted those reports an order of magnitude more than the 12,500 disclosed incidents of sexual assaults during the same time frame.
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