OpenAI‘s new ChatGPT Agent feature offers new ways to use ChatGPT and melds some of its more familiar features. The result transforms the AI chatbot, giving it numerous ways to accomplish real-world tasks for you while augmenting some of the roles it already plays for many people.
Essentially, ChatGPT Agent doesn’t just talk about doing tasks; it can blend deep research and execution in a single project with minimal guidance. It’s a different way of thinking about using AI tools and it’s useful to keep some of those in mind when usiing ChatGPT Agent.
AI autopilot
Regular ChatGPT is like having a conversation with a research librarian in some ways. You can ask it for help, and it will share knowledge, but not one that performs on your behalf. It can guide you on completing those chores, telling you what to type or click, but that’s it.
With ChatGPT Agent, it’s like having a research librarian with a laptop that can do the typing and clicking for you. It can navigate websites, sign in (when you provide the login), fill out forms, and check out and make purchases for you. ChatGPT usually stops at giving instructions; Agent crosses the finish line.
For instance, I wanted to surprise my wife with a new houseplant and do it quickly. I put ChatGPT in Agent mode and asked it to “Find and buy a decent fern under $30, same‑day delivery if possible.” In minutes, it sifted through plant shops in my city, picked the best options, filled the checkout form, and prompted me to click “buy” after filling out the payment form. The AI finished by letting me know that the order was placed and the tracking number emailed to me. That’s autonomy you don’t get in regular ChatGPT.
Research and execution
Usually, ChatGPT features are singular. You can create a big report with Deep Research, but you’d need to then open Canvas to get an editable document going. And to actually act in a browser, you’d need to either do it yourself or pay up for OpenAI’s Operator tool. Now, planning and carrying out a task can be requested and carried out simultaneously.
For example, if you wanted to do a road trip, you could ask ChatGPT Agent to “Plan a scenic Saturday outing within a two‑hour drive, budget‑friendly, that I can book now.” The Agent would perform a deep dive into everything from official guidebooks to online forums and local blogs to make a comprehensive report on ideas, then put the best ideas into a usable itinerary. It could then start clicking through reservation sites, filling in my name and guest count, selecting time slots, and even reserving parking, checking in with me to confirm any purchases: one chat, one interface, zero mode‑switching.
Transparent thinking
Certain modes of ChatGPT allow you to see the logic behind its thinking, but typically, you only see the final response. ChatGPT Agent integrates that narration into much more than just math problems. It explains every move and its reasoning as it chooses apps to leverage, options to filter, or vendors to buy from.
I asked the Agent to help me find the cheapest healthy snack subscription box available in the U.S. Wheras I’d usually usually see the answer and its price and nothing else, the Agent went through the whole process for me, saying, “Box A is $25/month with 30 servings; Box B is $40/month but 60 servings; Box C is $18/month with 15 servings, so Box B is cheapest per serving.” It immediately asked, “Shall I proceed to subscription?”
In other words, Agent didn’t just summarize its conclusion; it went through the reasoning and suggested the next step. I might want to take, showing its logic for that request as well.
Self-moderation
When you ask ChatGPT for something, it may or may not get it right the first time. It will blindly follow what you wrote in your prompt, whether or not it’s questionable. Using ChatGPT Agent gives the AI a kind of conscience. It will self‑moderate before carrying out any orders that seem ambiguous or that might not be as black-and-white in your mind.
For a test, I asked it to “make a four-hour audio comedy marathon playlist, but no stand‑up.” Instead of unthinkingly scraping my Spotify account and presenting its playlist and either ignoring the rule or making the list shorter than I wanted, it paused while working and said, “I’ve got a mixed playlist, including stand‑up, I think you might like, but your instructions said no stand‑up. Should I exclude them anyway, even though your playlist might be short?” That’s a bit of extra thinking and flexibility for a task that’s still ongoing. It’s a nice alternative to having to rewrite the initial prompt over and over again to accommodate reality.
Regular life AI
Most AI agent demos I’d seen focused on corporate travel, market research, slide decks, and writing apps to sell. Useful, sure—but hardly cocktail‑party conversation. ChatGPT Agent is pitched equally as a lifestyle companion, as you can see from the kind of prompts I’ve tried. But ChatGPT hasn’t brought this kind of power to bear on fun, even frivolous use, before creating the Agent feature.
As a theorteical, I asked it to “Plan a themed movie night for me and two friends.” It asked about genres and dietary preferences, and I described a couple nerdy friends with some allergies. The AI put together a sci‑fi triple feature and and found a local grocery site to order vegan popcorn, gummy worms, and both alcohol and mocktail ingredients in case anyone was driving.It even created a playlist suggestion and made a round-robin poll and calendar event that it offered to email to my theoretical movie pals.
The versatility for personal moments, whether dinner parties or gift shopping, could be key to OpenAI’s efforts to stand out in the personal lives of users. Instead of just enterprise accounts planning a business pitch, people could use it to orchestrate a surprise birthday scavenger hunt with gifts, gift‑wrapping instructions, and delivery estimates, all in one conversation. If people start thinking of AI, especially ChatGPT, as something that’s in the living room, not just a board room, they might be much more willing to pay for it, or at least a larger number of queries with ChatGPT Agent.
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erichs211@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
