Cursor's recent pivot is just like Codex
Cursor is following Codex and Intent into the world of agent orchestration
Last week, Cursor dropped their complete redesign. It’s no longer a VS Code clone. It’s centered around agents now. Why? Agents are the future of software development.
Cursor 3 is an Agent Orchestrator interface that allows managing multiple, parallel AI agents, focusing on chat, and reviewing AI-driven code changes. The announcement post sums it up well:
We're introducing Cursor 3, a unified workspace for building software with agents. The new Cursor interface brings clarity to the work agents produce, pulling you up to a higher level of abstraction, with the ability to dig deeper when you want. It's faster, cleaner, and more powerful, with a multi-repo layout, seamless handoff between local and cloud agents, and the option to switch back to the Cursor IDE at any time.
Cursor is Codex now
It doesn’t surprise me that Cursor is doing this. If you’ve used some tools we’ve talked about in the last few weeks, you’ll quickly notice Cursor now feels like Codex or even Intent.
Here’s the new Cursor:
Here’s Codex:
Here’s Claude Code in the Claude app:
And here’s Intent:
It seems pretty obvious at this point that all the best AI tools for software engineers are converging on the same UI. I think TUI (Terminal UIs) will still be around, but I think they’ll be overshadowed by these agent-manager UIs.
Writing software is mostly managing agents now
In the announcement post, Cursor shared:
How we create software will continue to evolve as we enter the third era of software development, where fleets of agents work autonomously to ship improvements.
We’re building toward this future, but there is a lot of work left to make it happen.
What do they mean, “third era of software development”?
Here’s how they break it down:
First era: Tab-autocomplete AI suggestions in your editor
Second era: Agents writing software (synchronously)
Third era: Lots of agents writing software (asynchronously)
In Cursor’s view, advances in recent models like Opus 4.6, GPT-5.4, or even their own Composer 2 have opened up new possibilities. These models power agents that run for longer, with less oversight, and have better results.
So it’s only natural they’d pivot their product to make this agent orchestration easier.
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How to get the new Cursor agents view
Before we talk about what’s actually new in Cursor 3’s agent view, let me show you how to get to it.
