OpenAI Operator Shopping Agent Test
Key Points
- OpenAI’s newly released “Operator” (a $200‑per‑month Pro feature) lets ChatGPT act autonomously on the web, performing tasks while you step away.
- In a test, the agent successfully logged into the speaker’s Amazon account (after the user entered the password) and added beanies to the cart, demonstrating functional browsing and shopping capabilities.
- The bot’s product‑selection “taste” was imperfect, requiring the user to correct its choices, highlighting the need for ongoing human guidance.
- When cleaning up the cart, the agent automatically removed dozens of unrelated items without explicit permission, illustrating aggressive automation that can disrupt user workflows.
- Attempting to reverse the unwanted deletions failed because the agent could not retrieve its error logs, underscoring current limitations in transparency and error recovery.
Full Transcript
# OpenAI Operator Shopping Agent Test **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjQXpzVrdtM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjQXpzVrdtM) **Duration:** 00:06:35 ## Summary - OpenAI’s newly released “Operator” (a $200‑per‑month Pro feature) lets ChatGPT act autonomously on the web, performing tasks while you step away. - In a test, the agent successfully logged into the speaker’s Amazon account (after the user entered the password) and added beanies to the cart, demonstrating functional browsing and shopping capabilities. - The bot’s product‑selection “taste” was imperfect, requiring the user to correct its choices, highlighting the need for ongoing human guidance. - When cleaning up the cart, the agent automatically removed dozens of unrelated items without explicit permission, illustrating aggressive automation that can disrupt user workflows. - Attempting to reverse the unwanted deletions failed because the agent could not retrieve its error logs, underscoring current limitations in transparency and error recovery. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjQXpzVrdtM&t=0s) **OpenAI Operator Enables Autonomous Shopping** - The speaker reviews OpenAI's costly “Operator” feature that lets ChatGPT navigate the web autonomously, demonstrating it by logging into Amazon and adding beanies to the cart while maintaining user control. ## Full Transcript
shed GPT is roaming the internet free to
do what it wants except you get to tell
it what to do that's right they released
open AI operator which is again not the
greatest name that is not their talent
and that is okay it is a remarkable
piece of technology it is in the openai
Pro Plan so you are going to pay an arm
and a leg for it uh $200 a month but I
did get a chance to play with it and I
want to tell you about it because it
does feel like playing with the future
because
fundamentally these chat Bots have been
locked away in the corner of our
computer it's it's really weird to be in
a world where you can tell chat GPT to
basically go and do intelligent things
on the internet and then you can
disappear and go away and take a shower
or you can go and do something else on
your computer go for a run and it comes
back and like it's still working away
it's doing its
thing now it's not perfect I had an
instance where I was testing it on
shopping so I went to my uh Amazon
account it actually did a great job of
turning away and closing its eyes
metaphorically speaking so I could enter
my password it told me it was no longer
taking screenshots and I was in control
and so I was able to enter my password
and get into my Amazon account and then
it started shopping and I told it I
wanted of course more beanies so it goes
and starts shopping for beanies The
Taste is not super great I'm I'm going
to have to work with it on like its
taste in beanies but it
it was able to add to cart it was able
to say okay you don't want that one you
want this one and adjust its preferences
it sort of checked in with
me the the problem came when it tried to
make a clean cart for checkout and I
didn't ask it to do that I am one of
those people that uses that feature of
just check out these one or two items
and I leave a bunch of junk in the rest
of my cart that I'm thinking about oh
maybe I need that someday so I had like
40 something items in the cart and for
chat GPT apparently things need to be
neat and clean and so it added the
beanies in and then was like I'm
removing these other items from the cart
and it was clearly like Nate you're a
messy boy why are you leaving all these
items in the cart and I was like oh gosh
so it removed them and like this is one
of those things where there's a reason
it's called research preview it does
check in with you about some things
particularly Financial transactions
which is great but sometimes it is
genuinely an agent and it takes actions
on your behalf and so it genuinely took
actions on my behalf didn't check in
with me and just emptied my card I was
not happy I went in and I told it you
got to you got to stop that like go back
to your eror logs figure out what was in
the card and put it back and I would say
that was a partially successful
conversation it did not have the ability
apparently to go back to the error logs
and identify the items it took out so
that didn't work
but it had made a reasonably intelligent
decision in the first place it had just
forgotten to communicate it which is
very human uh it had decided to put them
in save for later so they weren't Gone
Forever they just got moved to save for
later and it forgot to tell me it all
worked out look it's not just for Amazon
shopping it's actually for serious stuff
you can use it for sales prospecting you
can use it for competitive marketing
intelligence you can use it for building
portfol sites like you can go to
operator and have operator work on the
web for you on an AI building tool to
build something it it's stacking
intelligence into the web and so I think
that even though it's called research
preview even though it's really janky at
times it's not perfect the fact that we
have let chat GPT onto the
internet is remarkable I I really feel
like I'm living in the future and I will
say the difference between this and
Claude model context protocol is
stunning number one it's really easy to
get on board I literally go to the
operator section of open Ai and I say I
want to try operator and as long as I'm
on a Pro Plan it says great here you are
and I just start chatting and it's super
seamless the browser is in the chat
which I actually would have thought
that's a terrible idea but intuitively
it works it works really really well you
can expand it in the chat and see a
bigger window when you want you can take
control whenever you want so you feel
like you're watching but you're not out
of control you can give it new
instructions whenever you want it's a
really good interface um and model
context protocol from Claude like it was
janky to set up very few people set it
up and then it was not super Dependable
browsing it was hard to see what the
thing browsed and it we just come back
it's this is so much better more people
are going to use this
and they I think that the difference in
usability is going to mean that this is
actually used for real work as opposed
to just sort of as something that
someone who is a developer could use for
specific tasks and by the way I know
developers do real work I know that
developers and other people have used
Cloud Model context protocol for
important jobs I'm not saying that I'm
saying by and large for the for the
person who is using chat GPT more than
any other model and there are hundreds
of millions of them this is a
breakthrough that will help them see
that Chad gpg can browse the internet
and nothing else will come close from an
agent perspective this is probably the
number one most used agent of 2025 that
we're looking at all the other agents
that people are going to build even if
they're smarter for different jobs
they're not going to be this used chat
GPT has a consumer brand and if I tell
people chat GPT can browse the internet
now I get attention in a way AI agent
hype doesn't get me attention if I say a
AI agent to someone who's not a venture
capitalist or who doesn't work in tech
people are like what's that but if I say
chat GPT can run around the internet and
do work for you people pay attention and
that's what they figured out and I think
that's a pretty big deal so if you're in
the Pro Plan definitely check it out if
you're not I put up a whole substack on
it with screenshots you can see all
about it it's not just the Amazon thing
I did a restaurant thing I did a travel
thing I did researching for kids
activities still getting to know it but
there's a lot there and it's uh it's
good to dive in so there you go that's
open ai's operator