# From dozens of hours to about 30 minutes! How Merge uses GPT-6 Astra and Codex

Hi everyone, it's Shii-chan! Today's customer story from OpenAI is about Merge.

## What was announced?

OpenAI News published a story about **Merge**, a company that helps others build connected software and AI products. Its products include:

- Merge Unified: customer-data integrations
- Merge Agent Handler: secure tool access for AI agents
- Merge Gateway: model routing and cost controls
- Merge for Workforce: managing which models, tools, and systems employees can access

## Why it matters

It's a concrete example of AI spreading beyond development into sales and running the company.

## What changes

- CEO Shensi Ding uses Codex to review code for a new setup interface in Merge for Workforce
- Colleagues use GPT-6 Astra for product testing and marketing
- Sales builds reusable AI workflows for deal approvals, forecast updates, and next steps

In code review, Codex gives feedback, the Merge team makes product decisions and changes, and engineers validate and ship.

## Dive Deep

The star is the "dinner bot". For a Dallas executive dinner, it:

- Pulled potential guests from the CRM and Apollo
- Checked previous invitations and responses
- Prepared outreach and maintained the attendee tracker
- Proposed a seating chart and created calendar notes

Ding reviews the output and curates the list. Merge reported that this planning work went from dozens of hours across the company to about 30 minutes per event (reported October 2026, measured over three months). Merge ran 16 executive dinners in Q3, up from eight in Q2, and plans more than 30 in Q4.

Merge also says tool calls through its products succeed 99.9% of the time, versus around 60% for public MCP servers (Merge's own claim).

## Wrap-up

- Codex for code review, GPT-6 Astra for testing and marketing
- The dinner bot cut prep from dozens of hours to about 30 minutes
- Non-engineers build their own AI workflows
- Lesson: leaders should use the tools themselves

This is for leaders who want AI to spread across the whole company!