Stop using Claude. Start using Codex?

0:00 Some of my smartest friends are saying OpenAI's Codeex is the super app for AI. They're saying you pair that with GPT 5.5 images 2.0 and use Codeex's interface and you are going to be unstoppable. So, I called my friend Riley Brown to convince me that I should be using Codeex with all these models. And in this episode, we go through everything. how to use it from A to Z, how to create skills, how to connect it to notion, how to use Remotion to create beautiful videos. If you've been meaning to get good at codec, but you haven't had a second, well, this is your episode. You're in for a treat. And if you want to show some love to me and Riley, give this a like and comment, and I'll see you in there.

0:54 We are blessed to have Riley Brown back on the pod. Riley, by the end of this episode, what are people going to get out of this? People are going to learn how to use the best interface to use AI agents. In my opinion, I think Codeex by OpenAI and that means if you have a chat GPT subscription, you have access to codeex, which I think is the most powerful way to use AI agents. and we're going to learn the platform and we're going to talk about GPT 5.5 which was released yesterday as of filming this. I don't know when this episode will be out. Um we'll talk a little bit about browser use and you know I've been a little skeptical about AI controlling browsers. I think it's kind of slow and a little boring. This is the first time that I see it. I'm like oh it's actually starting to be faster and I could definitely see by the end of the year these browser agents are going to be as fast as humans. So, we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about computer use. We're going to talk about uh just doing all of your knowledge work and coding work inside one single platform, which is codeex. How does that sound?

1:58 >> This Well, I I just have to be honest with you. I got to say something. I am not on Codeex today. >> In fact, I have never downloaded Codeex. I >> It's just I'm not in that world. Okay? And this episode for me is a firsthand basically tour hacks, tips and tricks. By the end of this episode, I want to be converted. I want to be converted to codecs in that ecosystem. Um, I hope so, but I might be wrong. I might by the end of this episode, I might be like, you know what? I'm just going to stick with my own stack. And you know, this is there's just a lot of smoke here. So, let's see.

2:38 >> No, for sure. And you know what? And and I want to preface this by saying like I don't hate on anyone for using any stack. I think it's kind of dumb to do that. I think you have you should pick a stack and you should stick with it. Um I think moving from hot tool to hot tool is actually not the right strategy. If you're using clawed code uh inside cursor, right? If you use cursor for all your knowledge work and that works for you, great. Just keep doing that if you want. Uh I'm kind of permanently switching to codeex just because you know I work with seven engineers and all of them have switched to codeex and we agree that it's pretty amazing and you can use cloud code inside of it which is another bonus but um you if you don't mind I just kind of want to hop into kind of an excaladraw kind of do a little precursor to codeex if that's cool with you.

3:22 >> Yeah. >> Okay. So um yeah so I like to start with the basics. I've been uh really trying to get people uh to understand the difference between chat GPT and codeex. Um and so a good way to think about codeex is it is a state-of-the-art AI agent on your computer which is the the codeex model or the GPT 5.5 model in a nice interface that allows you to build an app, create any type of document, control your computer and create automations. You can see that right.

3:56 This is the codeex interface. It looks a lot like chat GBT right this is a new chat on codeex and um what I like to do whenever I create a new uh like whenever I go to codeex and let's say I'm working on a new maybe I'm working on the startup ideas podcast landing page and then I'm also doing some market research. So, we can actually create a new project and we can actually start from an existing folder. And let's just call this folder um Greg or let's call it startup ideas podcast. And we can just create a new folder. And this folder will be over here on the side. Can you see this?

4:36 Maybe I'll zoom in a little bit. >> Um and any time I hit new chat, this chat will show up in here. is you can see here I have all my threads over here on the side and they're all kind of organized. Notice there wasn't anything in this one and you can very easily just remove these from the side. So it's just like you have your folder and your chats within each folder which is just a project and so like research uh startup ideas podcast look at his videos and so I have a skill which is YouTube researcher and this allows me to immediately pull transcripts from YouTube channels. So, I can say like take the transcripts uh from his last 10 videos and tell me only what he's doing wrong. Be negative.

5:31 Make a report. And so then you can fire this off. And what I like is it's very tailored to multitasking. So I can press command N. And I this interface is a little similar to Manis. If you've ever used Manis before, it's very easy to see which what your agents are doing, right? If it's done, you'll see a blue dot. As you can see here, these two are done. These are kind of like unread chats. So, like it means it's done and I haven't clicked on it yet. While it's working, it kind of spins around. Um, and so like uh what is the startup ideas?

6:08 And so you can see here it kind of just organizes chats into threads. And what we're seeing is this is kind of the dominant interface to interact with AI agents. You can see here this is the new clawed code desktop app right here. You can see their code feature. It's very similar. You have these folders with chats underneath it. And if you've seen the new cursor interface, it's very similar. So all of these companies are deciding that this is kind of the correct interface to interact with AI agents. It just so happens that I think codeex is the best one. So let's go back to to arc. And so and so the way that I see it is like in 2025 that was the year of the tui, right? We had we had this type of interface with cloud code and it's kind of a um >> it's bittersweet because I missed these early days of using cloud code. I loved the terminal. It was really fun. And I think back to the early days when you and and a few others were talking about vibe marketing and I think there was so I think it was super directionally correct using AI agents to do a lot of marketing tasks. I just think I'm curious to hear what your observation was is this just wasn't a great interface for a lot of the people who wanted to to get the benefits from it but they didn't want to open a terminal or create skills like in these files. I think people in business just want an easier interface uh to do all of these agentic workflows. And so what all these companies are deciding on is that the guey is better. So we're moving from a terminal interface to a more clean simple interface. You have your chats on the left, your agent in the middle, and then whatever the agent is working on on the right. Another way that I like to think about this is claude code or this codeex is like claude code and co-work in a single product but it's even better than that. And the reason why I like it more than cla is claude made a decision to split up co-work and claude code. I would definitely try claude more if they didn't do this. I do not like them like they decided that people who are in business are going to use one product.

8:23 people who want to code are going to use this other product. They have different limitations, right? You can't just ask co-work to build an app. You have to go to claude code to do that. Claude co-work has different sets of permissions than claude code. And you know me, I'm super hyped on vibe coding. I think vibe coding has gotten so easy that like 95% of the things that you would want to code, it's as easy as creating a presentation. So I think and all a all a PowerPoint doc sorry if I'm kind of jumping around here but within the um codeex app right codeex app is I can create this l uh this app right here so this is an app this is a I posted this on Twitter yesterday this is in one prompt this is like a train simulator uh and it's super good at physics and this is me just testing the model having fun and I even added a crash counter so these trains can crash into each other and it's presented by all state. Um but the point is is in the same interface you can create an application and you can also create uh spreadsheets as you can see here it can create charts spreadsheets you can also create word docs you can edit and export these word docs and you can create powerpoint presentations and you can export them with different apps so you can export this to Canva and this will just open it up directly in Canva so I can make further edits and they're going to add more exporting features as time goes on because me as a startup founder, I'm constantly making all types of docs and I'm making a lot of landing pages, lead magnets. I want to do it all in one interface. And so that's kind of the main reasons that I use codeex. Any thoughts so far?

10:07 >> A million thoughts, but the biggest thought I have is what you're basically saying is this is codeex is the fastest way to do the most amount of things. basically. >> Yes, it is. And it it it got all the primitives right. And okay, actually we can dive into uh some more of the the reasons that like these are why I like codecs over certain tools. There's a lot of reasons I like it that these things are also in cursor um and are in the claw desktop app. Uh but here are the things that only codeex does or codeex does better than all of them, right? Um it is the only interface that does vibe coding and knowledge work in one platform. If you go to cursor and ask for a doc you know it'll give you it can like create HTML file and run it in the browser but it can't just create a doc and let you view it like a cloud artifact in one interface. You can do this on cloud desktop app but again you have to go to this co uh claude co-work feature. I'm not a fan of co-work at all. Um which may be a narrative violation on your channel. I don't know if you've been talking about cla coowork but that's okay. I haven't. I haven't, but I'm intrigued with Claude co-work personally. I I, you know, spend most of my time in Cloud Code. But I was thinking of doing a full-on episode on like co-work because it's one of one of the questions I get asked the most, which is should I be using co-work how how to best use it?

11:34 >> But don't wouldn't you wish that Claude Code could just do what co-work could do from the same interface? Yes. >> Um, yeah. And so to me, I don't see any good reason why you wouldn't allow Claude code to do the stuff that coowork could do. Um, and so that that's just my beef with Cloud Co-work. And that's why I've been annoyed by it. And I haven't made any videos on it is because every time I try and use it, I run into some sort of like um limitation cuz the way that they set up the the environment where the agents can do stuff, there's way more restrictions on co-work, which makes it super annoying to use in my opinion. Anyway, um I think codeex models are better at really complex tasks and we actually we know this for sure. Uh we've tested this extensively as a team. You know, we're highly incentivized to uh write the best code and write it fastest for uh in the quickest amount of time and codeex just does a better job with infrastructure with really hard tasks. I've oneshotted the other day. I oneshotted an app like Replet, a vibe coding tool that spun up sandboxes and you could vibe code web apps on your phone in one shot. It took an hour and 20 minutes to generate the code and this was on 5.4. It's pretty impressive. So, if you remember last year, OpenAI started working on Atlas. I thought it was kind of I was just like, damn, they're kind of losing focus.

12:56 They're they're building this Atlas feature. Um, you know, it's a standalone browser. how many people are going to use it. Well, recently they had like this big red alert at their company and they decided to kind of push all of their efforts into one single app which was Codeex. And now what they're doing is they're just putting Atlas inside they're basically putting Atlas inside like this is the Atlas browser. And I I know this by interacting with people at OpenAI. This is going to become a full web browser. So you're going to be able to log in. it'll remember your login info. And so instead of having like a web browser with all of your tabs open and you have to decide what task you need to use, instead you'll start a chat with an AI and the browser will be there right on the right and you're you'll you'll have different windows open for the specific task. And I think that's just a better way to do knowledge work, you know. Um and you can just open up tabs directly in the app that you're creating whatever it is that you want to create. and you'll be able to open up Notion and you can download the Notion plugin and so you can have your AI edit Notion and you'll have Notion open directly in the app um in the web browser which I find to be pretty cool.

14:08 Um and so that's another thing. They also have a built-in Remotion plugin and because their web browser is the best, you know, I created this video the other day. Oh boy, I've been doing a lot on here. Um, >> and Remotion for those people who don't know is what? >> So, Remotion, and by the way, in uh three hours, I'll be launching a video on how to use codecs for Remotion. Remotion turns code into videos. So, you can create motion graphic videos with code.

14:39 Well, guess what? Uh, lucky luckily for you, AI will write all that code. So, you can just create uh you can just type out what uh motion graphic scene you want and it will create it. And Claude, as many people in your audience know, Claude has went on this massive run of of launches every single day. And and by the way, it's reconnecting. I think Codeex is getting a lot of load right now. Like there's just a lot of people using it >> because you're talking about it. You know, you're talking about you're out there saying, you know, it's a super app. It's the best. You know, it's where you should be spending your time. You want to bet on Open AI and then all of a sudden it's reconnecting.

15:19 >> Yeah, dude. I mean, what can I say? Um, well, I I'll try and be quiet before we shoot our next video. Um, I'll just pin this. I ideally, it'll just work in just a second. We don't need to show it for now, but the point is you can generate really high quality motion graphic videos. And Enthropic did this when they first started doing their product launches. They were just launching them with remotion videos and it's really good for software products where you like have something happening on a user interface. It can generate the user interface. It can generate the motion.

15:51 And the thing that's really cool about codeex is you can just search the reotion plugin and once you enable the reotion plugin any chat that you use you can say at reotion and you can say at reotion please create a video and then I created another skill which is is called internet image puller. It doesn't just pull images. It pulls all of the assets for any given company from the internet. So it might work for 10 minutes. It'll pull all of a brand's assets, put it in an HTML file, and then Remotion or Codeex can have all of that information for Remotion. So it can use your logo, it can use your colors, it can use your fonts in the video. You don't have to like manually tell it what to do. It'll just pull all of that information. And so that's a really fun way. And um this is how we do a lot of our launch videos and some have gotten over a million views. U so this is a really useful thing. It was just really annoying to use with all of the other tools, Codeex is the only one where you can just at Remotion and it opens directly in the app.

16:59 >> Yeah. And you know, for for people who aren't super familiar with Remotion, it's not just that it, you know, takes concepts and turns turns the videos into code or or, you know, creates videos that are code. These videos are so high quality, it is actually insane. Like actually like I've I know multiple people who've gone from zero to 100,000 Instagram followers by doing reotion videos. Um now they're high quality reotion videos and they go back and forth and back and forth. I'm not saying you one prompt it and you get the best possible you know videos but these are is that reotion right here?

17:40 >> Yeah. So this is 77 like almost 800,000 views. This is all reotion. You can't hear it but like you can create motion graphic videos. Yeah. >> And it's really easy to just like create pretty simple videos. And I think when you're doing a launch video, if it's a good idea, you should try and keep it as simple as possible. Never have multiple things happening at once. >> Oh, okay. It just popped up. It's It's testing if it's running, but like this is what would run on the side of your screen, and it will in just a second, but it literally creates this like cap cut like timeline. And so this is uh and so these are all of your compositions.

18:21 And so here we have this demo that I made yesterday. Um and this was in one shot. And the reason why I was able to generate this in one shot is I actually have this thing called brand assets. Um this contains all of the assets that uh I might want to use. And so once you've generated a video with all of your brand assets, you can just reference that to your AI and you could say, "Hey, please use this background or use this component or use this logo." And you notice here, I just labeled all of these logos here. And so I can always say like, "Please look at the brand assets, use the X logo, the YouTube logo, the Tik Tok logo, and the cursor logo, and put it in this video, in this scene."

19:06 And so if you just get everything that you might want to use in here, it's easy to tell your AI to to use it later, if that makes sense. Anyway, you can create videos uh and you can open it right here in the browser. As you can see, that took a little bit because Codeex is running a little slow, but this is kind of like an everything app, which is which is pretty cool. And then to to uh to finalize why I use it over other ones is the computer use is better. It is faster than any computer use that I've used before. And this means you download computer use as part of codeex. It can literally control your computer. Not only can it control your computer, it can control multiple of your apps at the same time, which is a mind-blowing experience. And you can see the mouse moving around on your device.

19:58 I had it controlling Canva yesterday. It was moving around pretty fast, controlling Canva. it exported the right document and it fed it back into codec. It was a really fun workflow and that's just a really cool experience. I I highly recommend trying this just to kind of see where AI is at in terms of computer use and then as I talked about earlier, it can control the browser that's directly inside codecs. So pretty soon we'll live in a world where an AI will be able to go to any site, open the browser, you're going to be logged in.

20:29 So it'll have all of your login information. and it'll be a full browser like Atlas and it will be able to take any action. So there will be basically no limitation to what it can do. And then they released this new chronicle feature so that it kind of like remembers everything. So it'll kind of and this one might have some privacy stuff that you might want to look into if you're super big on privacy. This is my work computer and I I like testing stuff too much so I had to enable it.

20:54 But it basically watches your screen for context so you don't have to explain yourself again. It just kind of knows what you're working on and it stores these as like little codeex memories and it allows you to stay in flow. So you can move chats around. You don't really need to be that organized. The AI will just kind of have context over what you're doing. And these are kind of the main reasons I really like uh >> I didn't know about Chronicle. First time I've ever heard of that. Is it worth I I know there's privacy issues and security issues. I know the comment section is going to not love it, but from a productivity standpoint, are you seeing meaningful uptick?

21:33 >> So, I they released it 2 days ago, so I'm not going to lie, there's been way too many things to test. But if you go to personalization and you scroll down and go to Chronicle, uh I recommend learning more. This is not an endorsement. I'm using a work laptop. I test everything. I go unlimited permissions on I don't care about the privacy stuff. I'm testing everything. That's what I do. I love it too much. So, by no means am I telling you to do this and that it's worth the risk. I have no idea what the risk is. Um, but you should look into it because it is an interesting technology at the very least, right? H having an AI, assuming it's secure and everything, having an AI that understands what you're working on so that when you type something, it knows exactly what you're referencing.

22:19 that is inherently useful. Whether or not it works really well, I it's up up for debate. I haven't tested it long enough. You know, it came out two days ago. >> So, what else do I need to know? Like, because I'm downloading codecs for the first time. So, what are things in terms of setup? Remotion. I'm going to add uh projects. I understand uh plugins. >> Um yeah. So, yeah, let's talk about plugins. So plugins, you know, there's a lot of words right now and people talk about MCPs, they talk about plugins, they talk about skills, they talk about integrations, connectors, right? You have all of these words and if I'm being honest, the difference between them is very blurry, right? Just kind of I clump all of those words together and I just call them skills. Um, it just makes sense in my brain, right? You have an AI agent by default that's really smart. It can search the web. It can it can create apps, but if you don't give it any skills, then it's it's only going to be a generic model. What you need to do is you need to give your agent access to the tools that you already use to make it useful for your workflows. And so here they call them plugins. And again, skills and plugins, you can create your own skill. You actually can't build your own plugin unless you get it approved by OpenAI. So that's kind of the the difference. Plugins are more official.

23:39 Um, and so one of the plugins that I use is Slack. So it's connected to our Slack. I can ask any question. You know, we have like 30 channels as a company and I can just ask AI to summarize everything that pertains to me. And because Codeex keeps memories of me and I've given it a document that I've told what I think is important, it can find the things that are important. It'll surface them to me. Um, and you can also connect it to your email. also can send and uh receive emails or it can like tell you who emailed you if something's really important. Um and you can connect it up to notion, you can connect it to sheets, and you know, pretty soon you're going to be able to do it for all of them. The Expo one is pretty useful. It allows you to kind of view a mobile app uh preview directly inside Codeex, which is really cool. Um and then obviously Remotion and Canva, you can just connect it to your existing tools. And if you don't find the tool that you want to use in plugins, you can create your own skill. And you do that simply by creating a new chat. And you say, I want to create a new skill that does whatever blank. Um, and then you can also say use the slashkill. Wait, I think it's at skill.

25:02 Oh, maybe they don't have it anymore. To reference a skill, you use a slash. To reference plugins, you use the at mention, which I think is weird. I think they should combine all of them, right? So, I could say use computer use at browser use. Um, to use a skill, you do a slash. And you can see all the uh slashes here. I don't see they used to have a skill builder skill, but they don't have it. I think it's just smart enough to just say create a skill, and it'll just create it. After you create a skill, it'll show up here in this tab. And here are all the skills that I've created. Um, I've created >> It's so confusing, right? Because like >> you create a skill and then it puts it into the plugins >> tab.

25:45 >> Well, no, no. A skill is in the skills tab. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It's in the plugins tab as plugins and skills. And so, I think this is super messy, right? That's why I think they should just combine it all into skills or pick one and just stick with it because it is super confusing. And the fact that they have the different like you have an at for um plugins and then you have a slash for skills I find to be like kind of annoying. Um >> but I will say I've tried all of these tools. This is the simplest version that exists yet.

26:22 >> Okay. And in in the simplest way possible, what is the difference between a skill and a plugin? >> Honestly, I think plugins are just like a deeper uh integration. I I would be lying to you if I knew the technical thing. I just know that like if you're a company and you want to create an official plugin, you go to OpenAI and you you create it with them. It's similar to you remember the apps SDK on chat GPT. It's more of an official process, right? There's a reason why, you know, we can't just we couldn't spend the rest of this video making the the Greg Eisenberg plugin and then get it approved right after this video.

26:59 You'd have to reach out to OpenAI. You know, I'm sure they have thousands of companies trying to create plugins. And you can only imagine the value of showing up here on the plugins tab, right? So, this is kind of their more official integration. Um, and then skills are like what you create. Um, and uh, these are just again all of these skills are mostly just like a folder that is stored somewhere in here and then there's a skill.md file in that folder that has specific instructions.

27:29 And AI is really good at creating skills. So all you have to do is just say, hey, any repetitive task that you have in codec, say, hey, I want to create a skill so we can do this faster next time. And then the AI will be like, okay, cool. Like it may ask you some follow-up questions and then it'll just create the skill and then it'll show up here. Yeah, one thing you might want to do is, you know, if you're downloading codecs for the first time, maybe you connect it to your Google calendar and you basically say like, here's what I do on a given week and you know, help me create a set of skills that can help me do my job better. Absolutely.

28:04 Yeah. I think I think one of the best ways to do it is just to like literally speak into your phone. I just I tell everyone to do this. Just yap about everything that you do on a day-to-day basis. like go through every task. Don't skip any details. Take 20 minutes to just speak about everything. Get it in a document and then just look at it and be like, "Okay, what parts could I automate with something?" Anytime there's an automatable process and you can convert it into that could be completed on a computer.

28:34 That is a skill that you could create on codeex. Uh, one really cool thing is, um, right, so we just created this report using my YouTube researcher skill and it looked at the startup ideas podcast negative only content report and >> tear slowly goes down my cheek. So I I I love this. Let's let's >> All right. The show is drifting away from I I I I meant to do it as a joke. I'm not actually trying to to nitpick your channel, but I will say that >> as uncomfortable as it is to get AI to critique you, it is a useful activity.

29:10 I've done it before, you know, like sometime you can't turn a blind eye, you know, and it can and AI will actually find um it can search other channels and see what they're doing right and then compare it to what you're doing wrong. It's like this channel's doing this right. That's why they're getting more views than you, right? And these exercises are good. It puts you should spend more time on what you're doing wrong than what you're doing right in my opinion and just focus on improving it every time. Now, let's say that this was the most useful report you've ever seen, right? Let's say we go through it and we're like, "Oh my god, like we need to we need to do this more often." One thing you can do is you'll notice here we have this automations tab. I want you to do this every single Friday.

29:52 Um, actually every Yeah, let's do every single Friday for the videos of that week. I want to know what I'm doing wrong. Uh, please create an automation. Oops. I don't know why I didn't pick up on that. Oh, it's cuz I have my AirPods in. Um, create automation. uh 900 a.m. on Fridays.

30:25 And so it really is that easy to create an automation. You just type in that you want this to happen. This is how I normally set up automations. People sometimes want to create an automation before they do it. It's just like do it once and then tell the agent to do that every time on this day. And that's a kind of a good workflow. And you can see here that it shows created weekly startup ideas podcast Fridays at 9:00 am. If you click on it, it opens up right here and it shows you the status which is active, which is good. The next run is on May 1st, 2026. The last run is nothing because it hasn't run before.

31:00 Um, and there you go. It tells you what project. And then you'll notice here there's now a two on automations and it shows up right here. And if you want to test it, all you have to do is come up here and hit run now and it will run that automation. And that's how you can kind of test to see how good it is. And then if you notice that something's wrong, you can press edit and you can edit the automation. And I recommend doing that a few times, like whenever you're setting up an automation, you want to make sure it works. And that's how you set up these recurring tasks.

31:30 And some recurring tasks that I'm seeing a lot of people have in the AI space or just people in business is they just have AI analyze their Slack and their email like twice a day and it sends them an email summary. So they just they get it very concise and they all have links to to relevant uh chats or emails. So it's really easy to navigate. I found that to be a really useful one for me as well. And you know you oneshotted that negative report. So if I let's say I'm not happy with the output for whatever reason to refine that. How do I do that?

32:08 >> Yeah. I mean, say like, "Hey, by the way, uh, the report you gave me was too long. I want more concise." Put um, and make it a slash. And by the way, this document is a skill by default that that is called Word Docs. So, I just say make it a word docs instead of markdown. Um, and then and then you can see I'll use the doc skill here. I'll do two things. Convert the markdown into a concise docs and update the Friday automation. You see, I was going to have it recreate the doc and then I would say, "Okay, now update the automation." But it decided that it was just going to do it for me. Um, which is cool, which is actually not how I would want to do it. Um, and one thing is in skills, you can always include references with skills. So um or in in your automation. So you could actually include the document that it creates uh inside the automation. You can say hey it should look like this document, right? And you can give it an example. I I always tell people that really good instructions are good, but giving it a really good example is great, right? You give an AI one good example, it's amazing. You give it five good good examples, it's just going to do a great job every time. Um that's kind of how I think about it.

33:36 >> So is there the concept of an eval on output meaning you know an eval basically in evaluation short for short for evaluation basically this is a 9 on 10 output 10 on 10 output and it keeps going until it gets good output. Is there that concept within codecs? >> Um I mean you could set it up yourself. The the you know this is GBT 5.5. it'll run for as long as you want it to run.

34:04 And so you could just tell it say like hey I want you to evaluate it. The problem is um I think in that case it would probably be useful to have examples of really good outputs so it knows what you want. You know the AI they struggle with these uh subjective tasks right coding is very um you know what a good output is because the app looks good and it fully works. So it's easy to verify whether it's good or not.

34:29 but a report, you know, my my startup ideas podcast. Um, so this is another problem that Codeex has. Oops. That's kind of annoying is like the bullets are all weird. Like, so this is one thing. This is another example of something you can fix. Like fix the bullets. They're weird formatting. Um, what was I saying before the weird formatting? before the bullets completely threw you off.

35:03 You were saying uh those bullets are I don't blame you by the way. Those bullets the bullets will throw anyone off. >> Yeah. Uh yeah, honestly, but yeah, you could just create these these uh I don't remember what I was saying. >> You were saying I don't I don't remember. The bullets really took us for a left turn. We're talking about skills. >> I think you're talking about the you know the right outputs examples.

35:35 >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Colle the number one thing that you can do uh in a company right now and we're talking to a lot of companies who are trying to implement AI is just collect as many good examples as possible. Um this allows your agents to have examples that they can reference. Store them in a knowledge base that's easy to to find. Right? Right? If you store them in in like a notion database, for example, AI is really good at going to a notion database, scouring the notion database, finding the right document to use as the example, and and that way you can just kind of give it all of your documents as long as you keep it organized. It's it's going to be able to use it pretty well.

36:11 Um, and so collecting examples is a really useful thing. And I've noticed a lot more companies are even recording their screen a lot more um in order to capture workflows because I've heard rumors that the future versions of OpenAI uh their new their newest model and version of Codeex, you're going to be able to upload videos to it and so it can watch the video, see exactly how you do it, and then it will be able to control the computer just like you. And that's going to be a whole new world.

36:41 And so I'm kind of preparing for that world because most of my workflows as a creator or like I'm in I'm in marketing. A lot of my workflows require using an interface or using a tool like Cap Cut, like Canva and AI will pretty soon get to a point where I can do that. And and just a side note, you know, if that's the case that, you know, these super apps are going to allow recorded videos to be up uploaded to them, um you got to think that the value of recorded content is going to go up in in the AI age. So just from a startup idea perspective, uh there's a lot there.

37:22 >> Yeah. I mean, and why do you think you hear rumors of Meta and Microsoft employees now required to record their screen and do certain tasks? And it's kind of like, you know, it's become a meme in that, you know, a lot of people who are anti-AII where like, oh, when they start recording your screen, like it's over, like they're trying to replace your your workflows. And yeah, it is kind of scary in a corporate setting, but like if you run a small business and you want to accomplish more with like a small group of people, like you want to be able to offload some tasks that you wouldn't normally do um to an AI that can just kind of handle these tasks. Um see here, did it fix it? There you go.

38:10 So yeah, you can create any sort of document in here. Um, recording your screen will be big. >> So the number four negative, if you go back to that doc, one of the things that I get wrong in this podcast apparently according to codeex is my interviews are way too soft. So it says my guests get a friendly runway. There's not enough pressure on failure modes, cost, security, churns, customer acquisition, who should not use the product. So I'd like to take this opportunity to take the Canadian out of me and not be so friendly and ask you the question with respect to codeex.

38:48 Um you know who should use the product cost securities churn customer acquisition like you know what are the hard questions I'm not asking that I should be asking about Kodak. You know what I respect about you is you got feedback and you are applying that feedback 10 seconds later which I admire. That's great. Um um you know who should use the product? Um I think that if you're constantly I think content creators should use this platform, you know, like I I'm a content creator first. That's how my brain thinks. you know, I'm constantly creating lead magnets, uh, which require vibe coding. And if, um, and yeah, I find that to be super useful. And I'm also creating documents.

39:36 So, if you're creating websites and documents, you might as well do it in the same platform because ultimately, like the websites that I create have to do with the documents that I create. I don't want them to be in separate platforms. I want to be able to create a document, do research, outline my thinking, and then convert it into a landing page seamlessly. And that's what you can do inside Codeex. So, so as much as I want to help you give good feedback, I think there's a reason why uh these companies are racing to create the super app is because they think that everyone in knowledge work will use these platforms. And I truly believe that that's where we're going.

40:11 I'm not saying you need to use Codex. I have no vested interest in Codex. I'm not an investor in OpenAI. I've never been paid by them. I just like their platform and I think it's the best right now and I see a clear path to it being the best over time. So that's why I'm trying to prepare now because it's it's only 10% as good as it will be maybe once these AI gets really good at controlling a browser. That's what I'm really excited about. So for all those reasons, you should use it. Um but again, don't use it if you don't want to.

40:44 >> Anything else on this platform that's just a must know in terms of getting the most out of it? >> Honestly, you know what? I I I I we maybe should have started this, but so yesterday in my video, I posted this video, I wanted to test browser use. And so I had it make this chess game and then I said I said, "Okay, uh use at browser use and play yourself in chess, uh one move at a time like earlier.

41:18 So what you're going to see here hopefully if codeex operates properly and by the way we're using 5.5 on medium intelligence which uh I will talk about that right after but let's see if this AI plays itself using the browser and I think this is just like a good way to kind of get an idea of like how the browser use works. I recommend just having fun with it at first. I think people try to do like re Oh, see you can see the mouse. You see that? So, it's literally playing itself in chess as both teams. And look at how fast that's like working, right? Like, you know, a few months ago, this was way slower than this. I don't know if you tested any of the browser use stuff, but this is like pretty seamlessly playing.

42:09 Yeah, it felt like uh like with Manis for example, it was really cool uh that browser use was even possible, but it really felt like it was on a dialup modem. And this this feels like it's broadband 100%. Yeah, I just checkmated uh black. So, white just checkmated black. White wins by checkmate. I played it through the inapp browser one move at a time, alternating white and black. Final result, white wins by checkmate. And here we can see the full sequence. And so the in my video it did this in one prompt. I said, "Build a chess game, then use browser use to test the game and play yourself until one team wins." And that's what it did in one shot, which I mean that's pretty insane, you know? Like we're desensitized to it now, but like that's insane if you if you think about where we were even a year ago. Um, and then you think about where we will be a year from now, you know? um it may just create its own Canva a year from now and then use that. It might find it might be like, "Oh, it'd be way faster for me to just create my own tool because Canva doesn't have this little feature and it can't add it." Like, it might as well just make its own feature and then add it and then control it and that.

43:20 >> So, are you not using cloud code at all anymore? This is like your daily driver. >> Okay, two things I forgot to cover. That's one of them. Command J opens the terminal. Type claude. I have it set up to automatically run in uh dangerously skip permissions mode anytime like I can say redesign the chess app to make it the anthropic vibe. Boom. Congratulations. You're using cloud code inside codeex and you're using it with the cloud subscription. So you are getting you're benefiting from that same the same savings, right?

43:56 Another reason why you want to use these models in these platforms directly like in Claude or in Codex is you just save so much money because they're subsidizing like you get thousands of dollars of tokens for your $100 per month or $200 per month plan um because you're using their platforms. So like for me there's no really good argument on not using these platforms if I'm being honest because you get so many tokens uh as a as a user and you can also just use cloud code directly inside codecs and it'll work. Um so that's one thing also another thing is uh you know Theo and uh some other people have been talking about how they like to use 5.5 on low and medium effort for most tasks.

44:44 Right? if you ask it to make a simple change and you use extra high, it'll often like really try and put a ton of effort into it and it might go off and like do things. And so that's one thing to look out for. I'm not very good at discipline enough at doing that. I end up using I end up just on extra high just running it over and over again. Um, but that's what I've been hearing other people say. And you can also if it's feels like it's going too slow, you can turn it to fast. just know that this will be um more expensive. You'll run out of credits faster.

45:16 >> I also think it's worth mentioning that 5.5 is an expensive model, right? >> Yes. It's if you use it via their API, um let's see here. Look at that. So, Cloud Code just changed the chessboard, right? And then you can just throw it away. The only thing is if you use if you use codeex in the app, you get that like spinny animation and you can see when it's done. that does not happen when you use it in the browser. They're kind of like separate things. So, just keep that in mind. But like look at how easy that was. Now people like, "Oh, but Claude's way better at design." So, it's like just make the whole app and then tell Claude to design it. Like that's what I say. It's like it's that easy. Um what did you just ask right before this?

45:57 Um >> I I just I was just saying that I you know, you should should be noted that 5.5 is a more expensive model. >> Yeah. If you use it via the API, it's twice as expensive as uh the recent model, which is uh GPT 5.4. It's twice as expensive, but what you'll find is that the model is actually more efficient. So, it'll get the job done and get the job done better with less tokens. And I think that's where I think the benchmark thing will be a year from now. It's not going to be how token efficient is it. It's going to be how much money and how much time does it cost to do a specific task. You know, the same way you would hire a contractor or or a human employee. You're not like you don't think about it in terms of token efficiency. You're like, you know, you just think about how expensive is it to get a task done. And so like if you were what this model does is it really thinks about your intent more and so it'll go more directly towards what it is that you want. And so you may find that it actually gets things done better and faster. Um, but yeah, it definitely can cost more money when using it on the API. I haven't noticed my credits going down twice as much when using it in the app, so that's hard to say. Um, and then it's also 20% more expensive than Opus 4.7. So that's one thing to consider. So it is pretty expensive.

47:26 >> You said that there were two things that you wanted to cover. One was terminal. one was the models and the second was using cloud code in the terminal and again this is a full terminal so if you're technical like you can do anything in here um and I think yeah I mean you can create any type of document I'm still learning this right now so for for example you can leave comments on the uh on the browser this is similar to cursor has this feature as well so you can just comment directly on this and say like this should say uh Greg chess chess and what you'll see once you press enter you see that one annotation enters the the chat let me close out of this um and you can say and then you can add another one you can say like uh the pieces should be bigger and you can just say bigger and so you can add three annotations and then just say make these changes and that's kind kind of how I do it uh for a lot of the design changes and it's super useful. Um and so yeah, I mean this is a very complete product. You can also full screen it. One thing that you can do is you can full screen and then you can kind of me message it here. It's kind of in a more immersive way to uh do some vibe coding tasks or if you want to just focus on the document that you're working on. I find this to be incredibly useful.

48:50 >> Have you been using codecs a lot with images 2.0 that was launched? >> 100%. So, um, great question. Codeex has GBT image 2, which is the best image model in the world. And again, this is not like up for debate. I'm not, again, I'm really not trying to shill anything. You notice here that it's making changes and it's using browser use to test stuff. I didn't even ask for that. So, just wanted to put that out there. Um, yeah, the GPT image model is actually insane. It's better across every single category, and it's built into codecs.

49:23 And so, you can ask it to create websites. You can ask it to create 10 different versions of thumbnails and codeex will just prompt GPT image 2 and then it can generate um images and then it can put those images in in a word doc. It can put them in a presentation or a website or anything. So yeah, it's a super useful feature and I think there might be a skill for it. Um it's slash image or GPT.

49:54 No. Okay. You can just ask it to use GPT image and it'll just do it. And they also have Sora built in too. Like Sora is an official plugin. >> And yeah, but are you going to use Sora like or Yeah. >> No. God, no. >> Sora, I don't even have it installed. I just, you know, some people out there, you know, they might want to create some brain rot videos or whatever they're doing. >> Yeah. I think the people that listen to this, >> like most people here are like, I want to start a company or I are I have a company and I want product market fit and I want to scale it and they're looking at how can I use this tool to just supercharge my productivity and so I think with respect to Sora, you know, Sora is now delisted from the app store, right?

50:43 >> Yeah. It's it doesn't exist anymore. >> Doesn't exist anymore. So, it's like it's interesting. It's fun, but I think the people listening to this are way more interested in using Remotion. >> Totally. But, but mind you, that's not like a reference to the app, the the plugin. It's it's it's the video model. And Sora is not the best video model right now. So, that's why it's not interesting. And I think that's what OpenAI realized. They're like, "Oh, it's going to take so much effort to create the best state-of-the-art video model."

51:09 Like, that's what people want to use. So you can create a skill that connects to FAL to use the best video models and you can attach it to this app and you could have those videos show up inside the reotion thing. You can put videos inside of the reotion video that play in the video itself. So if you wanted to create a talking head video of you I've seen you've you've have used AI video before. I'm certain you could easily set that workflow to work directly inside Codeex and you could add subtitles directly in it. I'm sure there's going to be a company that only builds like an AI video editor like Remotion that shows up inside Codex and they're going to make a killing, right? Um that's all coming and so you'll be able to just edit create videos directly inside Codeex because any interface that you can possibly think of that would be on the internet will show up here because it's a full web browser. So, >> and with uh you know working with FAL, you know, what is the best video models?

52:09 Is it Cance 2.0? Is there something else that you you use? >> Yeah, for whatever reason, I've like completely lost interest in AI videos. Maybe it's gotten so good. For me, I just focus so much more on like the I find coding and and agents so much more interesting than video models. I'm not up to date. I would love in the comments if someone could let us know what the current state-of-the-art model is. I'm I'm really curious. Uh I've heard Seance, Cling, and a few others are are really good. Um I'm curious where Google is. Have you heard anything about VO?

52:42 Like is that still a good model or is it >> three? Was that the latest one? >> I think it was the latest maybe like 3.1 or something. >> Yeah. I mean, I had PJ Asan, I don't know, 3, four months ago, and the stuff that he was able to show me in terms of creating commercials using VO 3.0, I believe, was incredible. Um, haven't heard of a big launch from Google since then. >> Um, but I I I loved I loved what I loved what he showed me. I also played with Sea Dance 2 last week. Um, and I was also like very very impressed.

53:28 >> Yeah, I always try it and I'm like this is awesome and then I'm like what am I going to use this for? Like for me I make educational content. I like talking. I you know it's it's hard for me and I've just been using Remotion a lot because um very similar to you in the first you know one to two minutes of my long form videos I use graphics to kind of outline the you know I saw I watched one of your open claw videos recently and you have a really cool graphic of like openclaw with a spotlight coming down on the open claw was just a very good opening graphic and that's how I use I use it as as overlays over my long form content. That's what I'm excited about. I just have been using it not at all for for AI generated video. But also PJ is a legend by the way. I love that >> legend. Absolutely legend. I think uh a part of what what's daunting for a lot of people in AI in general is they hear about something like codeex and they're overwhelmed with how do I actually make this a part of my life? I just had coffee right before this with a friend of mine and I was like, "Dude, are you on, you know, codeex? How you using claude? How you using Gemini?" And he was just like, to be honest, I use notion and notion AI. And like I pingpong with, you know, chat GBT and Gemini sometimes, but that's like basically it. And I was like, well, what's stopping you from setting up some automations and creating some skills and this and that? He's like, I'm just overwhelmed. And I don't know.

54:56 >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, notion, first of all, Notion's done a great job. Honestly, I I you know, I think there I don't use Notion much anymore because the platform got a little too um overwhelming to onboard other people onto. Like if you don't know how to use Notion, it's becoming a little annoying to like teach people how to use Notion. It's it's kind of overwhelming a little bit. Um but they have a really good agent system built in. And if you want to go deep in notion AI and learning how to build agents, do it. Like, you know, it's great. I just personally want to create other types of documents. And um I find codecs like very soon you'll be able to connect like notion will just show up in the browser. Um because right now you can't sign into anything and have it stay signed in. It's not persistent. Uh, so that's but I know for a fact that they're releasing a full browser and so there is a notion skill already. You'll be able to control notion and so you're going to be able to use these models for cheaper inside codeex to use AI inside notion. To me it doesn't make much sense to use the agents within notion. Makes sense to use the agents within codeex and then use the interface of notion if you like it. That's how I that's how I see it. But if you say you use notion as your second brain, I'm I'm sure there's a plugin, a notion plugin that connects, right?

56:17 >> Yeah, absolutely. Plugin uh Notion, I have it set up. I use Notion for one specific thing and that is for all of my videos. I create one notion page and I drop in um I you can actually upload videos to it and like I can comment on parts of the script and include attachments on the videos. It's it's a niche use case. So, I use notion and I set it up with one click and if you actually go to notion um actually we don't need to get into this but it's super easy to like choose what uh team spaces has access for codecs. So, when you go to notion you can very easily like set up permissions like and you can only give it access to one database if you want. Um, if you if you're worried about it messing up messing with your notion or privacy concerns, it's you can give it access to only specific databases, which I find really useful.

57:10 >> I want to end on this note. Um, I want to end on for someone who's just getting started with codeex, if there's three or four things that they should do once they've got it installed, what would those things be? >> It's very funny. And by the way, we didn't plan this. I put this right before the podcast. I was like, if there's projects to get started, to test. Uh, I actually wrote them down. Um, and we covered one of them. I I think the first thing that you should do is you should have fun on all these platforms. I think the worst thing that people do when they when they show up on the platform is to like expect to get productivity out of it right away without kind of like play around for 30 minutes. take an hour to just do fun projects and that this gives you an idea of like the possibilities and then hone it down and get very specific and get disciplined. And so I think one of the best things that you can do is like make a game uh and have browser use play a game against itself. Just use the browser use, test it. It'll get your brain thinking about where this is going in the future and how this will be useful in the future, which may actually change how you set up your documentation now for all of your different tasks.

58:19 like maybe it'll maybe you can start preparing for it now cuz this is not a year from now. This is like 3 months away AI will be able to control any browser like as good of a human and this is something I can't convey by explaining it. You have to try it out. So that's why I recommend trying it out. Another thing that you should do is um tell AI to do in-depth research and say put it on max effort and say I want you to research this topic and um put it all organize all the information you find into a spreadsheet. Then when you're done, turn that into a document and a presentation and just get the sense that you can create a in-depth research report. You can put it in a spreadsheet.

58:58 You can create a document and a presentation. Right? So once you do these two things, you now understand browser use and all the types of documents it can create. And then I said make a 3D simulation. This one's more just for fun. Um if you want to, you can also try and build a mobile app in Swift. If you have a a company website and you're like, oh, you've always wanted to create a mobile app. Um, you can literally download the code to your to your web app or website, upload it, and say, "Hey, I want you to build a mobile app in Swift." For this, for now, you still need to have a Mac and you need to have Xcode downloaded. But it can oneshot mobile apps, like full mobile apps. Uh, if there's a few things that you need to learn, but you'll be mind blown at what it can create in one shot to the point where it's actually gotten scary for me. Like, I'm like, "Oh my god, every app that can exist will exist." Um, that's how good AI is getting at creating mobile apps. And then like the main thing after you've kind of played around, like I said, list out all the things that you do on a day-to-day basis, pick the most annoying thing that you do every day and then um try and do it with computer use or just try to create a workflow that accomplishes it. Maybe you use plugins and then tell your agent to turn it into an automation. Just tell your agent to turn it into an automation. And you know, if you can create one useful automation in a couple of hours, that might be worth it, you know. Um, and so those are just some projects that you could get started with right now that will give you an overarching view of what this tool can do. And I think by then you'll be like, okay, I understand.

60:29 >> And by then you'll be like that Riley Brown guy, he was right about that codeex thing. >> Yeah. Like you might have doubt now like you can only convey so much information by talking or even showing. Like you got to feel with AI. I think to a large degree you have to feel it. You do these things. If you're still not sold, message me. I I I I I don't think you you'll exist. Um I don't think that person will exist. Just you got to try.

60:53 >> I'll include links for where to find Riley in the show notes in the description. Riley, thank you. >> Put my phone number. I want a direct line. No, >> I'll include Riley's phone number. Actually, be careful what you text Riley because he's got uh Chronicle set up. So, you know, whatever you text him might just show up on the internet. >> No, no, it goes it goes straight to Sam Alman. >> Yeah. >> Riley, thanks so much for coming on the show. Um, do you have one last words word of wisdom to leave people after this codeex master class?

61:25 >> Um, honestly, just get out there and experiment. Right now is the best time to experiment. And uh what I've noticed, you know, being in San Francisco, uh I've noticed that the people who have been like really successful creating startups are people who just like want to experiment and tinker and they don't have so many people who are like type A want to get an immediate benefit after 30 minutes of using a tool. And I don't think that's where the benefits come. I think the benefits come from tinkering, messing around with tools, and and when you get when you have this weird inclination of you're like, okay, wait, what is a model? Why is this model different than the Deep Seeek V4 model?

62:01 It's like go down that rabbit hole. Use AI, learn about it, and then through that process, you'll you'll learn the things you need to learn to like start or grow your business. I think all of the magic in AI happens in these like rabbit holes and then once you find something, just like go all in on it. That's that's kind of my my final advice and I think Codex is a great kind of surface to do it on.

62:24 >> You're totally right. By the way, I lived in San Francisco for, you know, almost nine years. And I think it it's not just so much that the the tinkerers win is that people the tinkerers who aren't afraid of looking dumb uh win, right? So, >> I think um when you're when you're trying some of these tools, you might feel dumb initially and it's because you aren't a master of it yet. Um but the only way to become a master is to actually put in the time and work. Um, so I think uh the the reward is infinite, right? The ability to use these tools really well like codecs and be able to create, you know, for me this isn't just a a tool that's helpful for content creators.

63:14 Like this is helpful for literally anything that you know you can dream of. Lead magnets. You use one example. Lead magnets, content of course, but you know, ideas for products that you want to create, businesses you want to create, automating your personal life, automating uh a dream team for, you know, a business that you're starting just, you know, and everything in between. So, yeah, keep keep playing. just stop listening to this. But, you know, also like and comment for for us that, you know, I want I want this episode to to get a lot of love so Riley comes back on. Um, but yeah, get your hands >> Come on, dude. This is my fifth time on the show, man. I mean, I'll come back on anytime, even if it gets 10 views.

63:59 >> You came You came on when we were just a little show and >> dude, honestly, there was an argument to be made that I put you on the map. No, I'm just playing. uh the the the video the first Vive coding video. It's funny. I I actually someone a lot of people bring that up. They're like, "Oh, I first saw you on Greg Eisenberg's podcast when I was struggling through that first episode." >> And that's why we that's why we do this, right? Like, you know, I hope I hope uh so yeah, thanks again for coming on. And I hope someone learned one, two, three, four, five things that just gave them not just the creative juices to to actually use these tools, but the motivation to keep going. So, thanks a lot, Riley. Appreciate you having me on.

64:38 This is awesome.