OpenAI ChatGPT Work Brings AI Agents to Everyone
OpenAI is building AI agents for everything. Now, with OpenAI ChatGPT Work, the company is taking its biggest bet yet: bringing autonomous AI agents to white-collar workers everywhere.
For $20 a month, OpenAI ChatGPT Work promises to move beyond simple Q&A. Instead, it aims to complete multi-step projects on its own. It is designed to connect to your inbox, Slack, calendar, and apps like Notion and Figma.
The question is whether everyone will trust OpenAI ChatGPT Work enough to use it.
What Is OpenAI ChatGPT Work?
OpenAI ChatGPT Work is a modified version of the company’s Codex coding tool. While software engineers have long used AI to write code, this product is meant for everyone else. Accountants, investors, doctors, and operations teams are the target users for OpenAI ChatGPT Work.
The goal of OpenAI ChatGPT Work is to hook large language models up to digital workflows. Instead of just answering questions, it completes complex tasks autonomously.
According to Thibault Sottiaux, who leads OpenAI’s core product work, this is the company’s mission. “In this new factor, ChatGPT can actually do entire, very complicated tasks for you all autonomously in a way that is delightful and safe,” he told TechCrunch.
The Challenge of Reaching Non-Coders
For a long time, coding was the primary focus for AI labs. However, if AI companies are to justify massive investments, they need to reach new professions with products like OpenAI ChatGPT Work.
Industry analysts see this as a major hurdle. Christian Catalini wrote on a16z’s blog that if labs cannot scale AI in the market, “value will accrue elsewhere.”
The data suggests OpenAI faces a huge adoption gap. An OpenAI-backed study found that in June, 98% of OpenAI employees were using Codex. However, only 17% of organizational subscribers and less than 1% of individual subscribers were using the tool. This disconnect represents the challenge and opportunity for OpenAI ChatGPT Work.
Making AI Intuitive for the Masses
To get mainstream adoption, OpenAI ChatGPT Work must be easy to use. Most people are not using command-line interfaces. There is a reason Windows replaced DOS.
Andrew Ambrosino, the lead engineer for OpenAI’s desktop app, explained the challenge. An agentic product must “play with the messy world of your life and your tools and websites that were built in 1995 and never updated.”
The team is building features to help users discover what OpenAI ChatGPT Work can do. While some internal employees argue a button is unnecessary, Ambrosino pushes back.
“Discoverability matters in this phase, and at some point we won’t have the button,” he said. He compares it to skeuomorphism—the practice of making digital tools look like physical objects—which helped people transition to new technology.
How to Use OpenAI ChatGPT Work
Currently, OpenAI ChatGPT Work is best suited for routine, data-intensive tasks. OpenAI employees are using it to set up weekly metrics reports and turn spreadsheets into planning tools.
Investment Memos: VCs use agents to assemble communications and analysis.
Dashboards: Ops teams use it to spin up custom data visualizations.
Personal Tasks: Sam Altman uses OpenAI ChatGPT Work to plan his vacations.
I tested OpenAI ChatGPT Work myself. I asked it to get my son’s preschool calendar out of my email and put it into Google Calendar. It saved me a lot of repetitive data entry.
However, the setup for OpenAI ChatGPT Work isn’t always seamless. Setting permissions for agents can be confusing. Important settings are often only available on the web app, requiring users to switch between platforms.
The Rivalry Driving Product Design
OpenAI and Anthropic have been in a tight race. Anthropic’s Claude Code defined the market for AI coding. It was oriented around a back-and-forth conversation with the user, giving continual updates and choices.
OpenAI initially built Codex to be more autonomous. Ambrosino admits the product was ahead of where the model was at the time. “A bit more AGI-pilled,” he said.
OpenAI eventually followed suit, adding more opportunities for user interaction. Now, OpenAI ChatGPT Work is seeing a slight lead in demand. While Claude Code was more popular until April, surveys of enterprise use suggest OpenAI is catching up.
What Sets OpenAI’s Harness Apart?
When asked what differentiates OpenAI ChatGPT Work from Claude Cowork, OpenAI engineers gave a frustrating answer.
“I really don’t look at the harnesses that they’re building,” said Joe Gershenson, the engineering lead for OpenAI’s harness. “The Mad Men ‘I don’t think about you at all’ meme comes to mind here.”
Despite this claim, the similarities are obvious. In fact, when I started OpenAI ChatGPT Work, the first thing it asked me to do was port over my Claude Cowork data.
Ambrosino insists the differentiator is the strength of OpenAI’s models. “One thing that we have tried to do really well with this app is fully leverage the model,” he said.
The Harness vs. The Model
There is an ongoing debate about what matters more: the model or the harness. The harness is the software that decides what information the model sees and how it presents answers.
OpenAI’s engineers believe the “bitter lesson” applies to OpenAI ChatGPT Work. A better general model is more important than specific domain experience.
“You could get good results in the short term by adding a whole bunch of extras… but like, come on, the next model is going to come out in a couple of months and make that obsolete,” Gershenson said.
However, open-source providers see the big labs’ efforts as a way to lock-in users. Mario Zechner, creator of the open-source harness Pi, told TechCrunch that the labs “need to own the entire stack; otherwise, they just become a model provider.”
The Cost of AI Agents
There is also the question of cost. Messing around on a $20-a-month subscription, I used more than 80 million tokens in four days. The model’s analysis put the cost at $65. That is a significant subsidy for just four days of casual use of OpenAI ChatGPT Work.
Sottiaux said the company is working to push efficiency. “If you wake up six months from now, you should be able to do all of the same [tasks] with less spend,” he stated.
For now, the promise of OpenAI ChatGPT Work is compelling. It offers a vision of a digital personal assistant that handles the drudgery of modern work. But whether OpenAI ChatGPT Work becomes a staple for everyone depends on trust, ease of use, and cost.
