Watching Codex work in its own browser right now, and I'm floored by the quality — and the gap versus what it could do literally six months ago. It works faster than a regular user. Noticeably faster. And it can create secrets (access keys) without breaking a sweat — for now only in a test account, since handing an agent access to a real one still feels too risky.
In the video, the agent generates its own secrets to migrate archived emails into Gmail and Google Drive, downloads the JSON with those keys, and saves it into a password-protected folder locally. Result: 100 test emails migrated and tagged, secrets intact, script works.
Why it matters
Autonomous agents running directly in a user's browser are the trend of the last few months: Google shipped its own agentic browser, and OpenClaw and Meta's Manus are pushing similar ideas. But access to someone else's credentials is the real bottleneck — an agent that generates and stores its own secrets could in theory leak them just as easily as it uses them. It's still a test account, but judging by how fast Codex is improving, it's clear where this is headed.
Anyway, I'm almost afraid to imagine where this is by year's end.