OpenAI just took a giant leap toward fully autonomous AI agents…
The company released a new tool called Operator that can literally take control of a web browser and perform tasks for you—everything from booking flights and ordering groceries to managing hotel reservations and filling out web forms.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Some big names in AI got their hands on Operator and are saying it offers a preview of how AI will completely change how we interact with websites. Others see the road ahead being a lot longer—and more complicated—than you might expect.
So, what’s really going on?
Myself and Marketing AI Institute founder and CEO Paul Roetzer broke it all down on Episode 132 of The Artificial Intelligence Show.
Operator is powered by what OpenAI calls a “Computer-Using Agent” (CUA) model, meaning it knows how to navigate normal websites that real humans use. Instead of waiting for specialized integrations or plugins, Operator just “looks” at web pages through its own dedicated browser window—and clicks, types, and scrolls just like you or I would.
In short, it’s a first attempt at giving AI a pair of “hands” online—though it’s not quite fully autonomous yet.
Some of AI’s most influential figures immediately weighed in on Operator:
Perhaps the most forward-looking perspective came from Andrej Karpathy, who once led OpenAI’s early browser-control research (dubbed “World of Bits”) back in 2017. Karpathy posted that we’re entering a “decade of agents,” but that fully reliable, plug-and-play AI agents are still not quite here. In his words:
“There’s a huge amount of work across the board to make it actually work, but it should work.”
Translation?
Operator’s capabilities are impressive for 2025-level tech, but they’re definitely in preview mode—and there’s a lot of road left to travel before we see this working perfectly across the entire web.
Despite how cool the demos look, most experts (including Roetzer) agree that Operator won’t suddenly transform your day-to-day—yet.
“OpenAI seems like it's probably the most advanced of the previews of this technology that we've gotten," says Roetzer. However, his initial perception is that Operator is “definitely more of like an experimentation thing” right now.
That’s because:
However, it’s precisely these “preview” moments that clue us in to future breakthroughs. The fact that Operator exists at all proves that fully autonomous agents are inching closer. Give it six, twelve, or eighteen months, and we might see something that’s infinitely more reliable—and far more useful for average businesses and consumers.
If it seems too experimental for most organizations, that’s because it is. But the conversation is already shifting to what happens when it works really well:
Roetzer notes that industry-by-industry analysis is the next big step for professionals:
“If you’re a lawyer, accountant, HR professional, consultant, or CEO, there’s a real opportunity to figure out how something like Operator impacts your field."
At this early stage, no. Operator isn’t advanced enough to simply replace entire teams or handle mission-critical processes. But it’s a foot in the door for the kind of technology that eventually could have an impact on jobs. If you see glimpses of AI tools that can plan tasks, navigate websites, and free your team from repetitive work, you have a solid preview of how job roles may evolve.
So, what do you do about it right now? Roetzer suggests starting to think through a few steps.
The bottom line?
Operator is a wild new step in AI autonomy—but it’s more like a sneak peek than a fully polished product. The real story here is that AI agents are marching forward, one milestone at a time. If you’re not already thinking about how they’ll reshape your marketing, customer experience, and overall business, you may find yourself scrambling when the hype finally turns into mainstream reality.