Operator

What it is

Operator is an AI agent that performs tasks in a web browser. OpenAI released it on 23 January 2025 as a research preview, and at launch it was available only to ChatGPT Pro users in the United States^[1][2]. An agent in this sense is a system that carries out a sequence of actions for a user, rather than only producing text.

Origins

Operator ran on the Computer-Using Agent (CUA), a model that combined GPT-4o's vision with reasoning trained through reinforcement learning^[3][6]. Reinforcement learning is a training method in which a model is rewarded for behaviour that achieves a goal. The CUA model worked from screenshots of the browser and acted with a mouse and keyboard, in the way a person would use a computer^[3][6].

OpenAI also offered the CUA model to developers as computer-use-preview through the Responses API from 11 March 2025^[3][5].

Main features

Operator could fill in forms, place online orders and schedule appointments. It ran in a virtual machine with limited internet connectivity, which kept its activity inside a contained environment^[4]. It struggled with complex user interfaces, meaning websites with many steps or unusual layouts were harder for it to handle^[4].

Operator was trained to ask for confirmation before it completed tasks such as booking a hotel or sending an email^[3]. Agents of this kind differ from older scripted browser automation in that a model chooses each click and keystroke from what it sees on the screen. This check meant that the user, not the agent, made the final decision on actions with real-world consequences.

Its place in development

The CUA model was shut down in the API on 23 July 2026^[3][5]. In July 2025 Operator's capabilities were folded into ChatGPT agent, which controls a virtual computer in the same way^[4].

For readers, Operator is a clear early example of an AI system that uses a computer the way a person does. Its history also shows one path such products took: a limited preview for paying users, a model offered to developers, and then a merger into a broader agent.