OpenAI Codex Lead Explains Why AI Struggles With Design

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OpenAI Codex app lead: "PRDs are not dead."

Andrew Ambrosino (@ajambrosino) leads the team behind the Codex desktop app at @OpenAI. Codex usage has 6x'd since February, reaching over 5M weekly active users, and nearly 100% of OpenAI's employees use the Codex app regularly (and not just the engineers).

Andrew's personal mission is to build "the best desktop app that has ever existed, full stop." If you've used the Codex app lately, you know he's not far off from that goal.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss: 🔸 The "zone defense" model of how PMs at OpenAI operate 🔸 Why AI is so bad at design 🔸 Why Andrew thinks the Codex app would have flopped if they'd shipped it in November instead of February (same product—only the model changed) 🔸 What “taste” really means as a professional skill 🔸 How Andrew uses Codex to run his workflows 🔸 His vision for Codex + ChatGPT

Listen now 👇 https://youtu.be/P3KDebPTUrw

3h14.8K6248

RETWEETS2

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

@OpenAI @ajambrosino Don't miss my full chat with Andrew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3KDebPTUrw

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Why does AI suck at design?

I asked @OpenAI Codex lead @ajambrosino

His take: 1. Practically, labs prioritized coding because it accelerates AI research, and good design is harder to grade than good code. 2. Structurally, great design requires novelty and an understanding of the culture. A model that outputs the @Linear website every time isn’t good design. Models currently index heavily toward known patterns vs. something new.

He believes the practical issues will be solved, but the issues around novelty and culture may take a while.

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Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

.@OpenAI's Codex app lead: "A lot of companies are getting rid of the product role, and saying everybody's just going to be a builder.

I think that's a terrible idea.

This whole discipline of product has been built up over the years, and has real best practices, and real things that have been tried and failed. That just gets abandoned because people are like, oh I wrote some code.

Not everybody can work on everything. Every discipline has a skill component. Which a lot of engineers are guilty of not recognizing. Yes, you can use Excel, but you cannot work on the finance team."

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Andrew Ambrosino (@ajambrosino) leads the team behind the Codex desktop app at @OpenAI. Codex usage has 6x'd since February, reaching over 5M weekly active users, and nearly 100% of OpenAI's employees use the Codex app regularly (and not just the engineers).

Andrew's personal mission is to build "the best desktop app that has ever existed, full stop." If you've used the Codex app lately, you know he's not far off from that goal.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss: 🔸 The "zone defense" model of how PMs at OpenAI operate 🔸 Why AI is so bad at design 🔸 Why Andrew thinks the Codex app would have flopped if they'd shipped it in November instead of February (same product—only the model changed) 🔸 What “taste” really means as a professional skill 🔸 How Andrew uses Codex to run his workflows 🔸 His vision for Codex + ChatGPT

Listen now 👇 https://youtu.be/P3KDebPTUrw

58m8K3119

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Don't miss my full chat with Andrew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3KDebPTUrw

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

OpenAI Codex app lead: "PRDs are not dead."

3h2.8K41

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

@OpenAI @ajambrosino cc @karrisaarinen @benblumenrose @soleio

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

Why does AI suck at design?

I asked @OpenAI Codex lead @ajambrosino

His take: 1. Practically, labs prioritized coding because it accelerates AI research, and good design is harder to grade than good code. 2. Structurally, great design requires novelty and an understanding of the culture. A model that outputs the @Linear website every time isn’t good design. Models currently index heavily toward known patterns vs. something new.

He believes the practical issues will be solved, but the issues around novelty and culture may take a while.

4h1.2K41

Andrew Ambrosino@ajambrosino

@lennysan @OpenAI don’t you mean alexander

3h2121

Mike Rapp@empathyx100

@lennysan @OpenAI @ajambrosino This was a really compelling interview because there was literally no posturing and no look at how cool we are. We need more hands-on people talking like normal people and exploring real problems and issues.

3h142

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

paging @clairevo

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

OpenAI Codex app lead: "PRDs are not dead."

3h64020

Kirill Goldin@KirillGoldinBiz

@lennysan @OpenAI This is one of the side-effects of AI transformation, the school of thought that AI brings cost of acquiring expertise to 0 and thus everyone can do anything. But expertise needs to be applied, and judgement needs to be made. PM and engineer are still two different jobs.

54m60

joshpuckett@joshpuckett

@lennysan @OpenAI @ajambrosino More specifically, all (1) means is that no one has (yet) sat down and thought hard enough about the visual and functional language of (software) design.

We have it for coding; not yet design.

4h832

Andrew Ambrosino@ajambrosino

@empathyx100 @lennysan @OpenAI it helps that i'm not cool

3h351

Mostafa Esmaeili ⬧@Mustayayy

@lennysan @OpenAI @ajambrosino AI is great at generating variations and speeding up execution, but it still struggles with the cultural nuance and novel problem-framing that great design requires.

As a designer, I use it heavily for iteration but always bring human judgment to the table...🗽

4h311

Lenny Rachitsky@lennysan

@ajambrosino @OpenAI You all look alike to me

3h89

Amish Chopra@amish15chopra

@lennysan @OpenAI @ajambrosino Maybe AI doesn’t need to be a great designer. If it can understand a design as well as a frontend engineer and turn it into production-ready code, that’s already a massive leap forward.

3h39

Ryan Wigley@rywigs

@lennysan sorry devs

3h111

J A X 🐬TermMax@HieuTrinhVn

@lennysan @OpenAI Product roles still matter big time.

44m35

waqas@vixsheikh

@lennysan I’d like to add: Codex app lead and skilled mythbuster :) appreciate the perspective. The truly abundant mindset is to not assume that one thing kills the other.

3h32

Anton Panasenko@apanasenko

@ajambrosino @lennysan @OpenAI Alexander the Great

3h26

Jayzzz | zk/acc@zkjays

@lennysan @OpenAI @ajambrosino visuals generation is always more complex because its pure creativity

but ai + a designer is a bangerz

4h15

Ryker Stone@RykerStone_

@lennysan The speed of AI releases in 2026 is honestly wild.

Feels like every week another frontier model drops.

3h14