We’ve all heard the hype, right? AI especially AI Agents are coming for our jobs, robots will be doing everything, and soon we can all just kick back and relax while the machines handle the grind. But is that really the reality right now? One guy decided to put the latest AI agent from OpenAI, called “ChatGPT Operator,” to the test.
This isn’t just some casual user either. We’re talking about someone who’s practically living in the future – using AI tools for everything, even replacing their coding setup with AI-powered IDEs. This guy loves AI. But even he admits, he’s a big skeptic when it comes to AI agents and AI automation actually being useful right now. He’s seen a lot of promises about AI automation that haven’t quite materialized.
So, when OpenAI dropped “ChatGPT Operator,” exclusively for ChatGPT Pro users, he jumped at the chance to see if his skepticism was about to be blown out of the water. Did it live up to the hype? Well, buckle up, because the story is pretty funny, and honestly, super relatable if you’ve been following the AI rollercoaster.
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Okay, But What Is “ChatGPT Operator” Anyway?
Think of “ChatGPT Operator” as an AI that can perform web browsing for you. Unlike other AI tools that need to be plugged into specific apps, Operator is designed to be fully autonomous, using a web browser to get things done. It’s powered by something called “Computer-Using Agent” (CUA), which is a fancy way of saying it uses different AI models, including the GPT-4o, to see and interact with websites just like you and I do. We’re talking screenshots, typing and mouse clicks. This is a new approach to web browsing AI, aiming for full autonomy.
The idea is simple: you give Operator a goal, and it goes off and tries to achieve it by browsing the web. Sounds amazing, right? Imagine handing off all those tedious online tasks to an AI assistant.

Putting ChatGPT Operator to the Real-World Test: Influencer Hunting!
Our AI-loving skeptic decided to give Operator a task that’s actually pretty common in today’s digital world: finding online influencers. Specifically, he’s building an AI platform for investing (called NexusTrade, by the way) and wants to find financial influencers for a cool feature he’s planning – monetized copy-trading.
Think about it – financial gurus who share their investment moves for a subscription fee. It’s a win-win, right? Influencers can make money, and their followers can learn from (hopefully) experienced traders. Right now, a lot of this happens on platforms like Discord, but it’s kinda clunky. Influencers have to manually share screenshots of their portfolios every day, and followers don’t really have a good way to check if it’s all legit.
That’s where our guy’s platform, NexusTrade, comes in. It automates all of this, plus offers other cool features like financial research tools and strategy builders. So, finding these financial influencers is key.
And what better way to test out a web browsing AI agent than to get it to… browse the web?
He gave Operator this mission:
“Gather a list of 50 popular financial influencers from YouTube. Get their LinkedIn info (if possible), their emails, and a short summary of what their channel is about. Put it all in a table.”
Simple enough, right? For a human, maybe a bit tedious, but definitely doable. For an AI agent that’s supposed to be cutting-edge? Should be a breeze! This task seemed tailor-made for automation through web browsing AI.
The First Few Minutes Were… Kinda Mind-Blowing
At first, our skeptic was genuinely impressed. He watched Operator fire up a web browser and head straight to Bing (interesting choice, right?). It started searching for financial influencers, clicking through pages, and pulling info together. “Whoa,” he thought, “this is actually working!”
But then, reality hit. And it hit hard.
Hallucinations and Headaches: Where ChatGPT Operator Went Off the Rails
Within just ten minutes, things started to go south with this web browsing AI. First off, Operator seemed to get totally stumped when it came to finding a spreadsheet to use. It tried Google Sheets and Excel online, but when it realized it needed a login, it just… froze. Didn’t ask for help, didn’t try to work around it. Just kinda sat there. Awkward.
Eventually, it did find some online spreadsheet tool, but that’s when the real fun began, the hallucinations. And not the fun, psychedelic kind. We’re talking AI-gone-rogue, making stuff up kind of hallucinations.
After 20 minutes of watching this digital train wreck unfold, our user pulled the plug. He joked that if Operator was an intern, it would be getting a stern talking-to, or maybe even a revoked job offer. The promise of automation through AI agents was starting to look shaky.
So, what exactly went wrong?
The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Hallucinatory Of AI Agents
Operator had the right idea, search for influencers, grab their info, put it in a spreadsheet. Solid plan. But the execution? Let’s just say there’s room for massive improvement.
1. Bing, Really? Okay, searching Bing instead of YouTube directly wasn’t a dealbreaker, but it was a bit… odd. YouTube channels are influencer goldmines! Bios, social links, sometimes even email addresses are right there. A human would probably start there, right?
2. Hallucination-palooza: This was the big one. Operator hallucinated like it was its job. We’re talking made-up LinkedIn profiles, fake email addresses – the whole nine yards. It looked at over 70 influencers across different pages and ended up with a spreadsheet of only 18 names after 20 minutes. And the contact info? Pure fiction. It just guessed! Imagine if this was something serious, like medical research or financial analysis. Yikes.
3. Snail’s Pace Browsing: Everything was just… slow. Every click, every scroll took ages. Watching Operator navigate the web was compared to “swimming through molasses on a hot summer’s day.” Ouch. And remember how it froze up with the spreadsheet login? A simple “Hey, do you want me to log in?” would have saved a ton of time. Plus, watching it type was described as like watching “an arthritic half-blind grandma use a rusty typewriter.” Not exactly lightning fast AI automation.

So, Are AI Agents Taking Our Jobs Tomorrow? Probably Not.
The bottom line? Operator is a cool demo. It shows the potential of AI agents. And as AI models get smarter, faster, and cheaper, this kind of tech, focused on automation with AI, could be seriously game-changing down the road.
But right now? Don’t panic about your job being replaced by an AI agents anytime soon. Operator, in its current form, is just too slow, too error-prone, and honestly, a bit too… imaginative for real-world tasks.
Our skeptic summed it up perfectly: he could have done the same task in 15 minutes himself, with fewer mistakes and a better list. Even his 14-year-old niece could probably do a better job!
So, while it’s fun to play around with, AI agents like Operator aren’t exactly going to revolutionize your business today. But hey, it’s early days! Hopefully, OpenAI will iron out the kinks, speed improvements, hallucination control and maybe some smarter ways to handle logins and website interactions. The potential is there, but the train to AI agent utopia is still chilling at the North Pole for now. The future of automation with AI agents is still being written.
For now, it looks like humans are still safe in their jobs, at least for another year. And sometimes, doing things the “old-fashioned” way is still the most efficient way to go.
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