OpenAI has announced ChatGPT agent, promising to change how consumers interact with businesses forever.
The agent is capable of doing real, complex work, using a computer. To do so, it switches between thinking and acting while using tools like the web, spreadsheets, slides, and more.
Thanks to this capability, ChatGPT agent may perform many office-based tasks, such as building spreadsheets, creating slideshows, and developing meeting agendas.
However, it can also execute tasks on behalf of consumers.
OpenAI shared an example of a person preparing for a friend’s wedding. They gave ChatGPT agent the following prompt:
Find outfits that match the dress code, consider the venue and weather, propose a few options in a mid-luxury range, suggest hotels, and find a thoughtful gift.
The ChatGPT agent first clarified the wedding date and location. It then performed those tasks on a virtual computer. As it did so, the user watched from their device, with a view of the agent's chain of thought, i.e., what it's thinking as it works. Importantly, the user could intervene whenever they wanted.
From the demo, OpenAI showcased how consumer-facing agents – like ChatGPT Agent - could redefine how people find products and services. Yet, the AI juggernaut also showcased how these agents could transform how customers communicate with and buy from organizations.
How ChatGPT agent Communicates with Businesses on Behalf of Customers
First, consider how ChatGPT agent works. To browse the web, the agent builds on two previous OpenAI innovations: Deep Research and Operator.
Like Deep Research, it can quickly read and search web pages. Meanwhile, it can interact with UI elements - i.e., clicking, dragging, and filling out forms, etc. – like Operator.
By interacting with UI elements, ChatGPT agent can hop on a live chat widget and interact with a business on a customer’s behalf. It may also fire off emails.
As a result, contact center reps may soon find themselves interacting with AI much more frequently, which should provoke some tricky internal conversations around security and compliance.
Moreover, as many businesses have deployed their own AI agents across live chat and email, ChatGPT agent beckons a future of "machine-to-machine" customer service (more on this below!).
While OpenAI did not single out this use case, it stressed that ChatGPT agent will ask for confirmation before taking important steps, like sending a message or email to a business.
How ChatGPT agent Buys from Businesses on Behalf of Customers
When launching ChatGPT agent, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, underscored the possibility of a consumer prompting the agent to buy an item. The user can even give the agent their credit card information, so it completes the purchase autonomously.
As a result, ChatGPT agent can effectively manage end-to-end customer journeys, finding products, communicating with businesses, and buying from them.
While that’s an exciting possibility, many will be cautious about the agent falling for scams and Altman admitted that’s a real risk.
OpenAI has taken steps to mitigate such risks. For instance, it allows users to intervene at key moments, such as when typing in credit card details.
However, as Altman stressed: "It's a new way to interact with AI, [and] with that comes a new set of potential attacks.
