The first time I heard about AI agents, I thought they could monitor your computer use, anticipate your needs, and manipulate your behavior accordingly. This wasn’t entirely off base. There is a dystopic future about what AI technology could enable that experts issue regular warnings about. There’s also the present reality of agentic AI, which is here and clumsier than you would have guessed.

Last month, OpenAI released something called Operator. It’s what experts would call an AI agent, meaning a version of AI technology that can not only recall information and generate content, like ChatGPT, but can also actually do things. In the case of Operator, the AI can use a web browser to do anything from buying your groceries to updating your LinkedIn profile. At least in theory. Operator is also currently a “research preview” that’s only available to ChatGPT Pro users, who pay $200 a month for the privilege.

The reality is that, in its current form, Operator is not great at doing things.

I’ve spent a week using it and, if I’m being honest, am happy to report that Operator is slow, makes mistakes, and constantly asks for help. Far from the frightening digital Übermensch I once feared, what appears to be the state-of-the-art for a consumer-grade AI agent is impressive yet unintimidating. If you ask it to find you a road bike in your size that’s on sale and nearby, it can do it. Give it the right amount of context and constraints, and Operator truly works. But if I put in the time myself, I could still find a better bike.

“I’m very optimistic about using AI as sort of a dumb assistant, in that I don’t want it to make decisions for me,” Aditi Raghunathan, an assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. “I don’t trust it to do things better than me.”

The basic concept of an AI agent is simultaneously alluring and horrific. Who wouldn’t want an AI to handle mundane computer chores? But if the AI can use a computer to do boring things, you have to imagine it can do scary things, too. For now, for people like you and me, scary things include buying expensive eggs or briefly screwing up your presence on the world’s largest network for professionals. For the economy as a whole, well, it depends on how much we trust AI and how much freedom we give it to operate unchecked.

Global leaders gathered for the Paris AI Action Summit this week to discuss the future of the technology. Past summits in Bletchley Park, famous for its code-breaking computer used

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