For some reason, the same travel-booking example comes up every time companies try to explain what AI agents might be able to do. Are they already running low on ideas?

As I told you recently, I don’t want to use genAI products like ChatGPT to only ask questions. I want to tell the AI what to do on my computers (smartphone included) on my behalf. It won’t be just about booking travel. I’ll want the AI to browse the web, save files, send emails, and adjust settings when I tell it to. I also want all of that action to happen on-device with no data sent to a company’s servers.

Before we get to that, we’ll need to use first-gen agent tools like ChatGPT’s Operator. According to the report, OpenAI informed staff in a meeting on Wednesday that the tool will be available in January 2025. It’ll launch as a research preview for developers rather than regular users. It’s unclear when end-users will get access to it.