OpenAI launches Operator, a browser-using agent
Confirmed
The takeaway
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).
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- 3 of 5
- Last verified
- 29 September 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 AstraIn its training data
- Claude Opus 5.5In its training data
- Gemini 4 HydrogenIn its training data
- Grok 4.7In its training data
It happened before the cutoffs of all four assistants, so it can be in their training data.
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’.
Sources
3 sources from 1 site. Numbers match the chips in the text.
3 sources: 3 primary
Primary
- Introducing Operator (OpenAI)openai.com, official
- Computer-Using Agent (OpenAI)openai.com, official
- Introducing ChatGPT agent (OpenAI)openai.com, official
Changes
- Filed