Amp puts AI agents to work beyond code with OpenAI models

Amp⁠(opens in a new window) is building a frontier AI agent that helps developers turn ambitious ideas into working software. For Quinn Slack, Amp’s CEO, each improvement in the models is an opportunity to expand what the agent can do, from helping developers decide what to build to writing code and designing pages.

Amp chooses and recommends models based on what works best for its users, and OpenAI models account for the majority of tokens used in Amp. Quinn shares, “OpenAI is very transparent, and when there are safeguards applied, users know and they understand. That makes it really easy to use OpenAI models. You can do all of your work in Amp with OpenAI models and be really happy.”

As builders give agents more work, token costs can become a constraint. Quinn describes some Amp users consuming 10 billion tokens a week. He believes that if people watch every increment of usage, it might hold them back from finding out what an agent is capable of.

To help alleviate that, Amp launched its Sign in with ChatGPT integration. Quinn says it gives Amp users access to more tokens and OpenAI models, including GPT‑6 Astra, which changes how willing they are to let an agent take on a larger task.

“Sign in with ChatGPT means that people can have that feeling where they’re not counting every single token,” he says. “And once you actually let the agent go and have a longer leash, then you realize just how much it can do.” Quinn says he sees people using the agent to plan, decide what to build, and continue working after they ship.

Amp wants agents to help with all the work that goes into building and growing a product. Its own 20-person team uses them that way, including in marketing. “We don’t have someone devoted to it, but we have an agent devoted to it,” Quinn says. The team relies on the agent to improve the experience for new users and help more people discover Amp through search and other channels.

For that work, having high-quality writing and design is critical. GPT‑6 Astra helps the team produce documentation and design pages that meet Amp’s exacting standards.

Quinn’s experiments with GPT‑6 Astra continue at home. He gave it the plans for his house and used it to create a 3D model in Blender. He and his children then turn that model into games: adding a lazy river through the house or chasing garlic around it, inspired by their grandmother’s dislike of garlic. “And that was not possible just a couple months ago,” he says.

Amp recently announced Puck, a conversational AI assistant built into Amp that helps users launch and manage other agents. Users can ask Puck to start an agent to investigate a bug, coordinate several agents, or find a previous conversation about a technical problem.

With Calling Puck, powered by GPT‑Live‑1, users can talk to Puck in real time, including from a watch. Quinn imagines people using it to keep their agents working while they’re away from their computers, even while out for a run.

Amp has been testing Ultrafast mode with GPT‑6 Astra, and Quinn says the greater speed changes how people use agents. Today, people often switch between several agent tasks while waiting for each to finish. Faster responses could let people juggle fewer agents, or give agents more time to check their own work before returning a result.

For Amp, the next step is to bring more of the work before and after coding into the agent, so builders can carry an idea further without handling every step themselves. “There’s this unknown of what humans will create, and that’s what we all get to see. It’s cool to be playing a part in that,” Quinn says.