A Look at OpenAI’s Operator, a New A.I. Agent

In the past week, OpenAI’s Operator has done the following things for me:

• Ordered me a new ice cream scoop on Amazon.

• Bought me a new domain name and configured its settings.

• Booked a Valentine’s Day date for me and my wife.

• Scheduled a haircut.

It did these tasks mostly autonomously, although I did have to nudge it along from time to time and occasionally rescue it from a loop of failed attempts.

If you’re just catching up — or if you’ve been distracted by the DeepSeek news this week, which has overshadowed all other A.I. news — Operator is a new so-called A.I. agent released last week by OpenAI.

The tool, which was billed as a “research preview,” is available only to people who pay $200 a month for the company’s highest subscription tier, ChatGPT Pro. It gives users the ability to direct an A.I. agent that can use a web browser, fill out forms and take other actions on their behalf.

A.I. agents are all the rage in Silicon Valley right now. Some industry insiders think they’re the next big step in A.I. capabilities, because an A.I. agent that can use a computer can actually accomplish valuable real-world tasks, rather than just provide assistance. Many of the leading A.I. companies, including Google and Anthropic, are testing autonomous agents that they claim companies will eventually be able to “hire” as full-fledged workers.

I upgraded my ChatGPT subscription to put Operator through its paces and see what an A.I. agent could do for me.

On the surface, Operator looks a bit like regular ChatGPT, except that when you give it a job — “Buy me a 30-pound bag of dog food on Amazon,” for example — Operator opens a miniature browser window, types “Amazon.com” into the address bar and starts clicking around, trying to follow your instructions.