OpenAI launches Operator, a browser-using agent
OpenAI released Operator, a research-preview agent that uses its own browser to complete web tasks, powered by the Computer-Using Agent (CUA) model built on GPT-4o with RL; it was later merged into ChatGPT agent (July 2025).
Key facts
- Launched 23 January 2025 for US ChatGPT Pro users
- CUA: 38.1% on OSWorld and 58.1% on WebArena, per OpenAI
- Asks users to take over for logins, payments and CAPTCHAs
- Folded into ChatGPT agent on 17 July 2025
What happened
OpenAI made a consumer agent that navigates websites by seeing and clicking like a person.
Why it matters
Brought GUI agents to consumers and marked 2025's framing as the 'year of agents'.
Changelog
- 2026-09-29: created
Related events
Sources (3)
- officialIntroducing Operator (OpenAI)
- officialComputer-Using Agent (OpenAI)
- officialIntroducing ChatGPT agent (OpenAI)
id: 2025-01-23-openai-operator · updated 2026-09-29 · open in the interactive timeline