By Cal Newport
Publication Date: 2025-12-27 11:00:00
A year ago, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, made a bold prediction: “We believe that in 2025 we will see the first AI agents ‘enter the workforce’ and significantly transform the performance of companies.” A few weeks later, Kevin Weil, the company’s chief product officer, said at the World Economic Forum conference in Davos in January: “I think 2025 is the year we move from ChatGPT, which is this super-smart thing, to ChatGPT, which does things for you in the real world.” He gave examples of how artificial intelligence fills out online forms and books restaurant reservations. He later promised: “We will do it, no question about it.” (OpenAI has a corporate partnership with Condé Nast, owner of The New Yorker.)
That was no small boast. Chatbots can respond directly to a text-based request – for example, by answering a question or writing a rough draft of an email. But theoretically, an agent would be able to navigate the digital world independently, and…
