Why OpenAI wants you to let ChatGPT take over your computer, web browser and all
Since the company's 2015 founding, leaders have hoped to one day build AI agents that can use a computer — and, crucially, a web browser — with the same dexterity as a human. A huge challenge has been collecting and creating the data to train…
A huge challenge has been collecting and creating the data to train these agents. OpenAI now has enough faith in the tech to start rolling out Computer Use tools to customers.
This year, the company launched a Chrome extension that lets ChatGPT take over the browser, created cloud and in-app browsers for ChatGPT to interact with public websites, and added Computer Use to its Codex coding tool. The same underlying tech now also lets users.
What Happened
OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman, wrote on X that an April update made his company's tech "no longer just for coders, but for anyone who does computer work." Employees who work on the tools for OpenAI told Business Insider that while there's room.
Since the company's 2015 founding, leaders have hoped to one day build AI agents that can use a computer — and, crucially, a web browser — with the same dexterity as a human.
Rival Anthropic is also racing to improve its version of Computer Use and was the first to market in 2024.
As of May, at least 600,000 organizations had tried Anthropic's Claude Cowork feature, which uses the tool.
Key Details
Now, OpenAI says its tech's capabilities have caught up, and it's filling its blockbuster ChatGPT with ways to automate computer tasks, betting that users will turn over more and more work to it. Each phase of training for OpenAI's newest models included.
This data can come from human trainers: OpenAI, when it announced a 2025 version of Computer Use, said it had used datasets where people demonstrated how to complete tasks.
He showed Business Insider his attempt to use Codex to rebuild the 2013 city-building game "SimCity" from its original source code.
When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was discussing an early Computer Use version in 2025, he wrote on X that, "Although the utility is significant, so are the potential risks," and added, "We recommend giving.
Why It Matters
Zhou Yu, an AI researcher at Columbia University who worked on a popular benchmark test for computer-use agents, told Business Insider that this type of extra training builds on a standard AI model's capabilities and teaches it how to handle more tasks..
The fact that OpenAI puts this onus on users worries Mark Beare, a general manager at the security firm Malwarebytes.
Both Sun and Weinstein hope that as OpenAI's models improve, Computer Use will become so fast that the experience of working online will get the same treatment as coding.
What Reports Say
Coverage of the story so far points to:
Continued reporting by Business Insider as more details emerge
