OpenAI Debuts AI Agent That Controls Browsers To Automate Shopping, Presentations

OpenAI launched ChatGPT agent Thursday, an AI tool that can complete multi-step tasks including online shopping, creating PowerPoint presentations, and generating spreadsheets. The agent combines capabilities from two existing OpenAI services: Operator, which can browse and interact with websites like a human, and Deep Research, which handles complex online research tasks.

The tool runs on a new AI model developed specifically for agent capabilities and can perform tasks such as planning meals and ordering ingredients online, booking restaurant reservations, and creating slide decks based on competitor analysis. In demonstrations, the agent successfully browsed Etsy for vintage lamps under $200 with free shipping and automatically added items to a shopping cart.

ChatGPT agent is immediately available to Pro, Plus, and Team subscribers, with Enterprise and Education users gaining access later this summer. The tool requires user permission before making purchases or performing "irreversible" actions like sending emails. The startup, however, has cautioned that the agent "is far from perfect" and can take several minutes to complete tasks.

They're still in business?

[ebunga]

I'm shocked.

Automated shopping...

[ByTor-2112]

Just what no one asked for.

Re:

[sls1j]

We'll maybe the retailers asked for it??? And the Nigerian scammers???

Re:

[noshellswill]

Some sociopaths view shopping simply as a method for acquiring goods. Historically most humans shop personally for the interaction with other (retail) humans ... a bizarre or street-market or restaurant functions very much like this. Human to human interaction ranks primary; exchange of value functions as little more than "social grease". Humans were fundamentally social beings ( not product consumers ) when Aristotle said so ... humans have not changed ... sociopaths and

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[gweihir]

Au contraire! This is a really great gift to all the attackers, spies, scammers, etc. It will take years for people to understand what hit them and how to avoid that and the only way to secure this will be to switch it off.

Re:

[Presence Eternal]

My bullshit meter can no longer compete with photoreal product images, thousands of actually plausible fake reviews, search manipulation, direct pricing, and...just the entire CONCEPT of shadowbanned product listings. I think I need this.

Ordering ingredients?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com].

Illegal Violation of the BOTS act? Violates KYC?

[Anonymous Coward]

so if Ticketmaster won't sell a human a ticket since they want to add artificial scarcity to try to bump up their prices, why is it OK for them to sell a ticket to a robot when that's actually illegal under the BOTS act?

If payment providers are required to know KYC then how are they differentiating between AI and people using them as required by compliance? Because it's illegal for an AI to do things like this for a human under current finance law.

I look forward to them getting sued out of existence for t

Re:

[nightflameauto]

so if Ticketmaster won't sell a human a ticket since they want to add artificial scarcity to try to bump up their prices, why is it OK for them to sell a ticket to a robot when that's actually illegal under the BOTS act?

If payment providers are required to know KYC then how are they differentiating between AI and people using them as required by compliance? Because it's illegal for an AI to do things like this for a human under current finance law.

I look forward to them getting sued out of existence for this.

I'm sure the legal department has some EULA style click-through nonsense that will say the human that clicked through is ultimately responsible for all the AI's purchases, so it'll essentially boil down to what happens the first time one of these goes completely off the rails and orders somebody way more of something, or something they had no intention of ordering to begin with. When that goes to court, we'll see if there are any protections for the end-user that was dumb enough to trust an AI to shop for t

Good times!

[gweihir]

For anybody working in IT security, that is. Because this will be a massive, massive security problem.

Sounds like a future for non-thinkers.

[Fly Swatter]

You will be told what to eat and like it simply because you don't know any better - because your schooling trained you to do as you are told - and like it.

If they really believed in this stuff

[gtall]

If they really believed in their AI Faerie Dust, they'd give it a credit card too. Bet they don't go that far.

Could it do something useful, please?

[serafean]

I have dishes to do, laundry to fold, appliances to fix... Could it help with that please?

Instead we'll have bots ordering physical products from each other. Poor delivery drivers.