Investing.com -- OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab, unveiled new tools for developers on Tuesday. These tools are designed to aid them in building advanced AI agents using a few application programming interfaces (APIs). This comes as competition intensifies from Chinese AI startups.

AI agents are programmed to carry out complex tasks in the real world without requiring direct human intervention. APIs, on the other hand, are strings of code that allow for standardized communication, data exchange, and functionality between different software components.

The newly introduced tool is known as the Responses API. It is available to all developers at no extra cost. This tool is set to replace OpenAI’s Assistants API, which is scheduled for phase-out by the second half of 2026.

This development follows closely on the release of the latest AI models by Chinese startups. These models are claimed to be on par with, or even superior to, the leading models in the United States, but at a fraction of the cost.

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