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OpenAI announced a new feature for ChatGPT that allows the popular chatbot to perform actions on behalf of the user. This is part of an industry-wide effort to change the way people do things on the internet: tech giants hope that, instead of going from one application to another and manually searching the web, users can someday rely on agents to do it all.
The new agent mode of ChatGPT, which begins to be implemented immediately, is another sign that tech giants are redoubling their initiatives in digital assistants with significantly advanced capabilities. It also intensifies the competition between OpenAI and Google, which pursues similar ambitions with its Gemini assistant. You may be interested in: OpenAI said on Thursday that the new ChatGPT agent mode “”thinks” and “acts” using its own virtual computer, allowing it to manage complex action-oriented requests. For example, users will be able to give orders such as “Check my calendar and inform me about upcoming meetings with clients according to recent news” or “Plan and buy the ingredients to prepare a Japanese breakfast for four”, as reported by the company in a blog post. In a video demonstration, OpenAI employees wrote a long and detailed instruction asking the agent to help the user prepare for a wedding. It included specific instructions such as "Find an outfit that fits the dress code" and added that it should propose five options, along with hotels that could accommodate a couple of days around the event. The new feature is available to those who subscribe to a Pro, Plus, or Team plan.It is based on the capabilities of the ChatGPT Operator and Deep Research tools that OpenAI already offers and combines them; Operator navigates the web, while Deep Research analyzes online resources to, for example, compile reports. This update is another step in OpenAI's efforts to make ChatGPT a more complete universal assistant. At the same time, the AI industry in general is also grappling with how to address significant shortcomings and privacy concerns surrounding this technology. AI models are still prone to hallucinations and biases, and can act unpredictably, as demonstrated by xAI's Grok chatbot last week when it published antisemitic content after being prompted to do so. In a blog post, OpenAI acknowledged that the new ChatGPT functionality presents new risks. It indicated that it has limited access to the model's data and that certain tasks, such as sending an email, require user supervision. The model is also trained to reject "high-risk tasks" such as bank transfers, according to the company. "I would explain this to my own family as something innovative and experimental; an opportunity to test the future, but it's not something I would use for high-risk uses or with a lot of personal information until we have the opportunity to study and improve it in practice," commented Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, in a post on X where he announced the agent. He advised users to be cautious when giving ChatGPT access to personal information. For example, granting access to a calendar to coordinate a group dinner might make sense, but the agent would not need access to the calendar to buy clothes on behalf of the user. The announcement comes at a time when tech giants are increasingly driving the development of AI agents in their quest for victory in the AI race. Google made a series of announcements related to AI during its developer conference in May, including an agent that can make restaurant reservations and buy event tickets, among other tasks. Apple is working on a more advanced version of Siri that can use applications on behalf of the user, although that update is indefinitely delayed.
