Handle moving errands and reservations
OpenAI gave me one week to test its new AI agent, Operator, a system that can independently do tasks for you on the internet. Task: The author tested OpenAI's Operator agent for one week to handle moving logistics, specifically purchasing a San Francisco parking permit and booking a Greek restaurant reservation. The workflow involved instructing the agent to navigate websites, click buttons, and fill forms, while the human remained actively involved to grant permissions, provide personal information, and correct the agent when it got lost or hallucinated. Operator runs in the cloud, allowing the user to continue working on their local machine during the process.; tools: Operator. Human role: The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.; limitations: Operator is not fully autonomous; it frequently pauses for human input and is prone to hallucinations that can lead to costly errors. Several major platforms, including Expedia, Reddit, YouTube, and TaskRabbit, blocked the agent, limiting its utility. The system requires constant supervision for sensitive tasks like financial transactions or personal data entry, reducing its practicality for truly hands-off automation..
Tools
Published on Agent Work Atlas:
Overview
OpenAI gave me one week to test its new AI agent, Operator, a system that can independently do tasks for you on the internet.
Workflow
The author tested OpenAI's Operator agent for one week to handle moving logistics, specifically purchasing a San Francisco parking permit and booking a Greek restaurant reservation. The workflow involved instructing the agent to navigate websites, click buttons, and fill forms, while the human remained actively involved to grant permissions, provide personal information, and correct the agent when it got lost or hallucinated. Operator runs in the cloud, allowing the user to continue working on their local machine during the process.
Reported result
The agent successfully located the correct city website for the parking permit and found a suitable restaurant, but required significant human intervention. The author had to answer over six questions for the reservation and repeatedly grant permissions for the permit application. Operator also hallucinated parking garage distances, suggesting locations that were far away and expensive, which would have wasted money if not for the human's ability to intervene and correct the address.
Human role
The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.
Limitations
Operator is not fully autonomous; it frequently pauses for human input and is prone to hallucinations that can lead to costly errors. Several major platforms, including Expedia, Reddit, YouTube, and TaskRabbit, blocked the agent, limiting its utility. The system requires constant supervision for sensitive tasks like financial transactions or personal data entry, reducing its practicality for truly hands-off automation.
Try it
I want to test OpenAI's Operator agent for [replaceable task, e.g., booking a hotel or buying a permit]. Please guide me through the process. First, instruct Operator to search for [replaceable target, e.g., hotels in Paris under $200]. Monitor the agent's actions closely. If it asks for permissions or personal info, provide them only after verifying the request is legitimate. If the agent gets stuck or hallucinates, take control of the browser to correct the path. Do not allow Operator to complete any financial transactions or submit final forms without my explicit confirmation. After the trial, report the number of times I had to intervene and any errors the agent made. If the intervention count exceeds [replaceable threshold, e.g., 5], conclude that the task is better done manually.
Source reports are not independently verified. Publication date is the catalog publication date, not the original article date.