OpenAI acquires Ona to strengthen AI agent control
▼ Summary
– OpenAI acquired Ona to integrate its secure, persistent cloud environments into the Codex platform, enabling agents to work beyond a single device or session.
– Ona’s technology provides customer-controlled cloud environments where agents can access tools and systems for ongoing enterprise work.
– Ona CEO Johannes Landgraf stated that combining Ona’s infrastructure with OpenAI’s intelligence and distribution will help deploy agents in production at scale.
– Weekly Ona agent sessions grew 13x since the start of the year across major institutions like the oldest US bank and a large European pharma company.
– The announcement did not disclose Ona’s revenue but highlighted rapid enterprise adoption and expansion of the platform.
OpenAI has announced the acquisition of Ona, a startup specializing in building secure, persistent environments for AI agents, marking a significant step in the company’s push to make its Codex platform more enterprise-ready. The deal underscores OpenAI’s focus on moving beyond single-session, single-device AI interactions toward a future where agents can operate reliably over time across complex organizational systems.
According to an official statement from OpenAI, Ona’s technology “provides secure, persistent environments where agents can access the tools, systems, and context they need to make progress over time.” The company added that by integrating Ona, it will “expand Codex beyond work tied to a single device or active session and help more organizations deploy agents securely in production.” This suggests a clear strategic intent to make AI agents more autonomous and trustworthy in real-world business settings.
Johannes Landgraf, CEO of Ona, echoed that vision in his own statement. “Ona brings the building blocks agents need for enterprise work: trusted, customer-controlled cloud environments where work continues across devices, inside the systems where software actually lives,” Landgraf said. He contrasted Ona’s operational foundation with OpenAI’s strengths, noting, “OpenAI brings frontier intelligence, product polish, and a scale of research and distribution we could never reach alone.”
While Landgraf did not disclose specific revenue figures, he offered a glimpse into Ona’s traction with major clients. “Since the beginning of the year, weekly Ona agent sessions have grown 13x in production across some of the world’s most demanding institutions: the oldest bank in the US, one of Europe’s largest pharma companies, one of Asia’s largest sovereign wealth funds and many others,” he wrote. He added that “the largest enterprises out there love the platform and are expanding more rapidly than ever before,” signaling strong adoption in highly regulated, security-conscious sectors.
This acquisition positions OpenAI to compete more directly in the enterprise AI space, where persistent, secure agent environments are increasingly seen as critical for automating complex workflows. By folding Ona’s infrastructure into its own, OpenAI is betting that the future of AI in business won’t just be about smarter models, but about agents that can work continuously, safely, and across the full breadth of an organization’s digital landscape.
(Source: InfoWorld)
