OpenAI's AI Agent & Here's How It Works

You have already heard a lot of noise about AI agents. Today’s newsletter breaks down how an AI agent (Operator) works and includes resources around it.

I added content, news, and resources about “Humanity’s Last Exam“, Naval, Elon vs Altman beef, and more.

In today’s edition:

• AI Roundup— Humanity’s Last Exam, Elon vs Altman

• Sponsor Spotlight— the AI report

• Dive Deep Drill— all you need to know about the AI agent by OpenAI

• Build Together— here’s how I can help you

AI Roundup

This week’s resources, content, and news.

— [news] If AI passes this test, we won’t have any tests.
— [content] The Stargate situation is crazy. Elon vs Altman beef intensifies
— [resource] GenerativeAI Roadmap and Resources
— [news] Mistral AI plans IPO.
— [content] Signs You're Overcomplicating Your AI Solution.

— [resource] 9 most impressive use cases of OpenAI’s AI agent by Rowan Cheung
— [news] Naval on AI, check out the discussion.
— [content] This free Chinese AI just crushed OpenAI's $200 o1 model
— [resource] Humanity’s Last Exam dataset is out.

Sponsor Spotlight

There’s a reason 400,000 professionals read this daily.

Join The AI Report, trusted by 400,000+ professionals at Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Get daily insights, tools, and strategies to master practical AI skills that drive results.

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Dive Deep Drill

Operator—OpenAI’s AI Agent Release

OpenAI just launched its AI agent called Operator.

That uses its own internet browser to perform a task for you.

It is one of the first agents from OpenAI capable of independently executing tasks based on a given prompt.

How Operator Exactly Work?

Operator use CUA.

It stands for Computer-Using Agent and is a model.

It combines GPT-4o's vision capabilities with advanced reasoning through reinforcement learning.

• As humans do, CUA can work with graphical user interfaces like buttons, menus, and text fields.

• It understands the screen by analyzing screenshots and interacting with mouse and keyboard actions.

CUA follows a loop of perception, reasoning, and action:

Perception

• processes raw pixel data to understand the screen

• screenshots are added to the model's context of the computer's current state

• this allows the agent to "see" the graphical user interface

Reasoning

• uses chain-of-thought reasoning to decide its next steps

• to analyze current and past screenshots and actions to create a plan

• when stuck in challenges the agent uses an "inner monologue" to evaluate

  • its observations

  • track intermediate steps

  • adapt dynamically

This structured problem-solving approach helps CUA break tasks into multi-step plans and self-correct when necessary.

Action

• executes actions like clicking, scrolling, or typing

• It can manage multi-step tasks, adapt to errors, and even self-correct when needed.

• It performs actions such as clicking, scrolling, and typing until it determines the task is complete or user input is needed. This enables CUA to navigate and operate across diverse environments using a single general action space

Just in case you don’t know How AI Agent Work?

What Operator Can Do for You

OpenAI showed in the preview of the research

• tasks like filling out forms, ordering groceries, or even creating memes

• searching, sorting, and filtering results to find relevant data

• remember your preferences on websites

• don’t rely on OS or web-specific APIs

• it can use multiple browser tabs

OpenAI already partnered up with InstaCart, DoorDash, and Uber.

Limitations of Operator

• it fails with CAPTCHA’s

• it struggles with complex interfaces (creating slideshows or calendars)

• precision in tasks like editing text is still evolving

• currently available in the US region and under PRO subscription($200)

• it can be inefficient on new interfaces (relying on trial and error)

Why It’s Important

Operator represents a shift in how AI interacts with the digital world.

• future of automating workflows

• it uses the same tools that we use as humans

• it moves AI from being a passive tool to an active participant (think Jarvis)

• it can adapt to virtually any software environment, addressing a wide variety of use cases.

What else?

The operator will come with an API for developers and integration with ChatGPT.

Here is a checklist for AI Agent Development

It contains questions that will help you with your AI agent development.

Safe and Scalable AI Agent Deployment [Checklist]

If you want to build your first AI Agent, here is my video on [YouTube]:

Want to work together? Here’s How I can help you

• AI Engineering & Consulting Services (B2B)—[Request a Brainstorm]

• Learn AI with Community?—join the [AI leadership academy]

• AI Training for Enterprise Team—[MasterDexter]

• Get in front of 50k+ AI leaders & professionals—[Sponsor]

I use BeeHiiv to send this newsletter.

Paper Unfold

A breakdown of complex research papers into easy-to-understand pointers.
If you missed the previous ones:

• DeepSeek-R1 - A Step Towards AGI [Paper Unfold]

• Agents are Not Enough [Paper Unfold]

• Attention Is All You Need [Paper Unfold]

PS: I am starting an AI cohort in 5 days, Neurons to GenerativeAI.