OpenAI Shifts AI Battleground to Software That Operates Devices, Automates Tasks

OpenAI’s first major product, ChatGPT, proved so popular that it sparked a generation of wannabes. But as rivals like Google catch up, OpenAI is hustling to release a product that could prove almost as revolutionary.

OpenAI is developing a form of agent software to automate complex tasks by effectively taking over a customer’s device. The customer could then ask the ChatGPT agent to transfer data from a document to a spreadsheet for analysis, for instance, or to automatically fill out expense reports and enter them in accounting software. Those kinds of requests would trigger the agent to perform the clicks, cursor movements, text typing and other actions humans take as they work with different apps, according to a person with knowledge of the effort.