OpenAI’s new ChatGPT agents: everything you need to know

You’ve probably heard the buzz around OpenAI’s latest creation: the ChatGPT agent. It’s being pitched as a personal AI assistant that can tackle complex digital tasks for you, like researching topics, navigating websites, and getting jobs done inside its own “virtual computer.” It’s a fascinating peek at what the future of AI assistants might look like.

But after the initial excitement, real-world tests are starting to show a different side of the story. While the technology is impressive, it has some major drawbacks, especially for businesses that count on reliability, security, and smooth connections with their existing tools. This guide will walk you through what the new ChatGPT agent is, where it shines, and why it might not be the right fit for professional use just yet.

What are the OpenAI ChatGPT agents?

The ChatGPT agent is a new feature for paid ChatGPT users (on Pro, Plus, and Team plans) that’s built to handle multi-step online tasks based on a simple prompt. It essentially combines the abilities of two of OpenAI’s older tools: “Operator,” which could click around on websites, and “Deep Research,” which was good at pulling information together.

The agent works inside what OpenAI calls a “virtual computer.” This is a really important detail. It operates in a sandboxed, remote browser that’s completely cut off from your own computer. This means it can’t see your logins, cookies, or local files unless you give it that information during a session. This is good for privacy in some ways, but it’s also the root of its biggest weaknesses for day-to-day use.

On paper, its main jobs are to:

• Dig up information from public websites and any files you upload.
• Interact with web pages to do things like fill out forms or click through menus.
• Handle simple data analysis or create presentations.
• Use connected apps like Google Drive as a place to read information from.

Key features of ChatGPT agents and how they work

OpenAI is promoting some pretty powerful features that suggest a future where AI manages our digital to-do lists. Let’s take a look at what the ChatGPT agent was built for.

Multi-step task automation with ChatGPT agents

The biggest selling point is its knack for handling complicated, multi-step jobs from a single, conversational prompt. For instance, you could ask it to “plan and buy ingredients to make Japanese breakfast for four.” In theory, it would break that down into smaller steps: find a recipe, create a shopping list, go to a grocery store’s website, and add the items to a cart.

It can gather information from public websites, go through files you’ve given it, and get data from other apps through ChatGPT connectors.

Web navigation and taking action with ChatGPT agents

The agent doesn’t just read websites; it’s meant to interact with them. According to OpenAI, it uses screenshots to “see” a web page, which lets it find and click buttons, type text into forms, and move through menus just like a person would.

For security, there’s a “takeover mode.” If a task needs sensitive info like a password, the agent is supposed to pause and let you take control of its virtual browser. This lets you log in yourself without the AI ever seeing or saving your credentials.

Deep research and synthesis using ChatGPT agents

Borrowing skills from the old “Deep Research” tool, the agent can conduct in-depth research by collecting info from dozens of sites and weaving it into a single report. To help you fact-check, its findings come with clearly marked source links or screenshot citations so you can see where it got its information.

The reality: Early limitations of ChatGPT agents

While the features list is impressive, hands-on reviews show there’s a gap between the promise and what it can actually do today. The agent is a big step for AI, but it’s a long way from being a dependable business tool.

Performance and reliability issues of ChatGPT agents

In a hands-on review, The Verge compared the experience to working with a “day-one intern” who is “incredibly slow,” “glitchy,” and often doesn’t finish the job.

One test involved asking the agent to find a specific type of lamp on Etsy. After 50 minutes of searching, filtering, and “thinking,” the agent announced it had added five items to the user’s cart. The problem? It hadn’t. Because it was working in its own isolated browser, the items were added to a virtual cart that the user had no way of accessing. The task was technically “done” in the agent’s little world, but it produced zero real-world results. For any business process, that’s not just unhelpful; it’s a complete dead end.

The “virtual computer” of ChatGPT agents: A dealbreaker for business use

This gets us to the agent’s biggest roadblock for any real business application: its sandboxed environment. Because it runs on a separate virtual computer, it can’t access your logged-in sessions, use your existing credentials, or reliably perform actions that require an account you’re already signed into. It can’t update a customer record in your help desk, post a message to a private Slack channel, or change an order in your Shopify admin.

This is a huge problem. While the ChatGPT agent works in its own separate universe, truly helpful business AI has to operate as a smart layer on top of your existing tools. Specialized solutions like eesel AI are built to integrate directly with your tech stack to take real actions, like tagging and routing tickets in Zendesk, drafting replies in Intercom, or looking up order details in Shopify.

ChatGPT agents aren’t built for specialized business workflows

The ChatGPT agent is a jack-of-all-trades tool. It doesn’t have the built-in context, logic, or safety rails needed for specific business functions like customer support, IT service management, or internal HR. You can’t give it standing orders like “always send tickets that mention ‘refund’ to the billing team” or “make sure you use the tone from our brand style guide when talking to customers.”

Business automation needs an AI that gets your specific processes and data. An AI for customer service, for example, has to know how to prioritize tickets, when to bring in a human, and where to find answers in a private Confluence knowledge base. The ChatGPT agent just wasn’t designed for that kind of specialized work.

ChatGPT agents vs. specialist AI: Choosing the right agent for your business

The launch of the ChatGPT agent brings up a big question for any company thinking about AI: do you go with a generalist tool or a specialist one? For important business functions, a specialized solution is almost always the right call.

Why specialized AI agents are more reliable than ChatGPT agents

With a general tool like the ChatGPT agent, you have to write a super-specific, detailed prompt every single time you want it to do something. And even then, as we’ve seen, there’s no guarantee it will get it right. It just doesn’t have the guardrails to perform consistently.

A specialized platform like eesel AI comes with products specifically designed for business tasks. An AI Agent can handle frontline support, an AI Copilot can give human agents a hand, and AI Triage can automate ticket organization. These tools are already set up for their roles, which makes them far more reliable and effective from the get-go.

Control and security concerns with ChatGPT agents

Giving AI more power comes with more risk. OpenAI has been open about the security hurdles of agentic AI, mentioning the possibility of “prompt injection” attacks and labeling its new agent as “high capability” in sensitive areas like biology and chemistry. This generalist power can become a weakness when you’re dealing with sensitive business information.

On the other hand, a security-first platform like eesel AI is built for business from day one. Your data is never used to train general AI models; it’s kept separate for each customer and only used to power your bots. For companies with tough compliance requirements, eesel AI also provides options like EU data residency to keep your information secure.

Why ChatGPT agents don’t work with your other business tools

The approach to integration is another big difference. The ChatGPT agent uses “Connectors” that mostly give it read-only access to your data. It can look at your Google Drive files, but it can’t take action in another system based on what it finds.

A business-native platform like eesel AI is built around deep, actionable integrations with the tools your company relies on, including Zendesk, Intercom, Slack, and over 100 others. It works as an intelligent layer over your existing setup, not as a separate island that can’t talk to anything else.

Get reliable AI automation beyond ChatGPT agents for your business today

OpenAI’s ChatGPT agents are an incredible tech demo and a clear sign of where autonomous AI is going. The ability to understand and carry out complex tasks from a simple instruction is a huge step forward.

However, for real-world business uses that need reliability, security, and solid workflow integration, the technology just isn’t there yet. Its spotty performance, security concerns, and the major limitation of its “virtual computer” make it a poor choice for automating customer-facing or internal tasks at scale. While we wait for generalist agents to get better, businesses already have powerful, practical, and reliable specialized solutions available today.

If you need a solution that works right now, a specialized AI agent is your best bet. eesel AI layers on top of the tools you already use, like Zendesk and Slack, learns from your actual business content (including past tickets and private docs), and takes reliable actions inside your workflows. It’s all backed by enterprise-grade security and predictable pricing that doesn’t charge you more just for growing your team.

Ready to see what a specialized AI agent can do for your business? Book a demo or start your free trial today.