Virtual employees could join workforces this year and transform how companies work, according to the chief executive of OpenAI.
The first artificial intelligence agents may start working for organisations this year, wrote Sam Altman, as AI firms push for uses that generate returns on substantial investment in the technology.
Microsoft, the biggest backer of the company behind ChatGPT, has already announced the introduction of AI agents – tools that can carry out tasks autonomously – with blue-chip consulting firm McKinsey among the early adopters.
“We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents ‘join the workforce’ and materially change the output of companies,” wrote Altman in a blogpost published on Monday.
Related: OpenAI lays out plan to shift to for-profit corporate structure
OpenAI is reportedly planning to launch an AI agent codenamed “Operator” this month, after Microsoft announced its Copilot Studio product and rival Anthropic launched the Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model, which can carry out tasks on the computer such as moving a mouse cursor and typing text.
McKinsey, for instance, is building an agent to process new client inquiries by carrying out tasks such as scheduling follow-up meetings. The consulting firm has predicted that by 2030, activities accounting for up to 30% of hours worked across the US economy could be automated.
Bloomberg reported that Operator will use a computer to take actions on a user’s behalf, such as writing code or booking travel.
Last year, Microsoft’s head of AI, Mustafa Suleyman, indicated the company is moving towards agents that can make purchasing decisions, saying he had seen “stunning demos” where the agent carries out transactions independently, although there have also been “car crash moments” in development. However, an agent with these capabilities will emerge “in quarters, not years”, Suleyman said.
Before making the agent prediction, Altman also wrote in his blog that OpenAI knows how to build artificial general intelligence (AGI), a theoretical term that he has referred to in the past as “AI systems that are generally smarter than humans”.
“We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it,” he wrote, adding that OpenAI was now turning its ambitions towards “superintelligence”.
“We love our current products, but we are here for the glorious future. With superintelligence, we can do anything else,” he wrote.
“Superintelligent tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery and innovation well beyond what we are capable of doing on our own, and in turn massively increase abundance and prosperity.”
