AI Giants Compete to Build Plugin Ecosystems: Claude, DeepSeek, and Codex Converge

Overview

Recently, the competition for "super Agents" in the field of artificial intelligence has shifted from a contest of single-model capabilities to the construction of plugin ecosystems. Anthropic officially launched Claude mods last night, Pi introduced code mode in its 1.0 update, and OpenAI’s Codex continues to refine its plugin system. Meanwhile, DeepSeek’s proposed harness concept emphasizes "everything is a plugin." This trend indicates that major tech giants are working to enable users to autonomously stack functions onto agents, thereby building more flexible and personalized intelligent assistant systems.

Comparison of Plugin Mechanisms Across Four Products

Although the goals are similar, the technical paths and points of intervention for these four products differ significantly. Analyzing how they work can clarify their respective technical characteristics.

• Claude mods: A modular feature suite launched by Anthropic, allowing users to add specific skills or tools to Claude much like installing applications. This design lowers the barrier to entry for ordinary users, enabling Agent capabilities to be rapidly extended through simple configuration without needing to dive into code.
• Pi code mode: As the core update in Pi platform version 1.0, code mode focuses on enhancing the interactive experience in programming scenarios. It is not a traditional plugin marketplace but deeply integrates the code execution environment into the conversation flow, making Pi more precise and efficient when solving complex logic problems.
• Codex plugin system: OpenAI’s Codex continues to strengthen its connectivity with external tools. Its plugin system emphasizes compatibility with existing development workflows, aiming to allow developers to seamlessly embed Codex into CI/CD pipelines, IDEs, and other production environments, forming a closed-loop workflow optimization.
• DeepSeek harness: The "harness" concept proposed by DeepSeek carries a more philosophical undertone, advocating that "everything is a plugin." This means that not only tools but also the calling methods of models themselves and data processing logic can be modularized. This design grants users extremely high freedom but also places higher demands on technical understanding and system architecture.

Future Trends in Ecosystem Competition

The convergence from different paths among these giants reflects the inevitable direction of AI application-layer development: moving from closed model black boxes to open plugin ecosystems. Users are no longer satisfied with the general capabilities of a single model; instead, they wish to customize their own AI assistants like building blocks according to their specific needs.

The future competitiveness of AI will depend not only on parameter scale but also on who can provide a more open, user-friendly, and secure plugin extension platform.

With players such as DeepSeek, Anthropic, and OpenAI entering the fray, standardization and interoperability within the plugin ecosystem will become the key to the next round of competition. For developers, understanding the underlying logic of different platforms will help them choose the technology stack best suited to their business scenarios.