OpenAI – Agent Mode

OpenAI expands its play for the AI Ecosystem

• The release of ChatGPT Agent is a strategy to encourage consumers to spend as much of their digital time using ChatGPT, which, if successful, will result in OpenAI becoming a digital ecosystem in its own right and potentially displacing Apple or Google.
• Last week was alive with the idea that OpenAI would launch a browser to compete with Chrome, but the reality is that OpenAI has launched a new agentic service which should be able to do more on behalf of the user.
• The new product is called ChatGPT Agent and is built on a new model (I presume based on the GPT-4 foundation), which brings together Deep Research and Operator, which was launched in January 2025 and enables an AI to take action on behalf of the user.
• The new product is available on the web and in the app and is activated by choosing Agent Mode in the toolbox.
• The idea is that the user can ask the agent to research a topic or complex itinerary that would then end in an action such as booking flights, restaurants, travel or other events.
• This sounds great at a very high level, but immediately, complexities creep in as this functionality only has any value when it has access to user information and the services that he or she uses on a daily basis.
• This is where the connectors come in, which are APIs that the user can enable so that the agent can access things like Gmail, Outlook, Expedia, Google Calendar and so on.
• This is where ChatGPT Agent could end up being very useful, as one can set a task and do something else before coming back, and approving the agent to take suggested actions.
• This also requires that competing ecosystems allow users to make their data available to the agent, and I can foresee a time when Gemini launches something similar and closes OpenAI’s ability to access its users’ data.
• This would blow up almost all of the demos that OpenAI showed as part of the launch.
• This is where OpenAI’s real difficulties lie, as although it leads by leaps and bounds in the generative AI services domain, users currently live their digital lives elsewhere, and to be useful, the agent must have access to that data.
• Apple is a good example of this problem, as it is clear that OpenAI would like its agent to have full access to iPhone functionality to offer the best service to users.
• However, OpenAI will also seek to do this on Google Android, and if it were to be successful on both, then Apple’s differentiation relative to Android would start to disappear.
• Users could then begin to ask why they are paying a premium for iPhones, leading to price and margin pressure.
• Apple will, of course, have seen this coming, which is why I do not think that OpenAI will ever get unfettered access to iPhone, as in Apple’s mind, it will have to be an agent under its control that does this.
• This will put yet more pressure on Apple to come up with a workable AI strategy, but crucially, it has time to do this because AI Agents are still very far from having any influence on which smartphone, computer or wearable the user purchases.
• I expect that we are going to quickly see everyone else come out with something similar, but whether the users adopt any of these services remains to be seen.
• They sound great in practice, but, as always, they are quite different in practice, and the reviewer feedback on Agent Mode is pretty mixed at the moment.
• Either way, this is a crucial service to keep an eye on because if the 400m or so users who use ChatGpt start using Agent Mode, then more services will connect to it and developers will be incentivised to build on GPT-4 rather than Gemini or Claude and so on.
• Ecosystems get built by attracting both users and developers, and once critical mass is reached, users attract developers and vice versa, creating the flywheel effect that keeps the ecosystem expanding.
• Given Google’s position in the digital ecosystem, I still think that it has the advantage here, but it needs to act quickly, which is why we saw Gemini winning more mentions at the i/o 2025 keynote than AI.
• How this plays out is still very uncertain, and fortunes are likely to be won and lost along the way, but with the largest ecosystem already built and a leading position in AI, Google is likely to be one of the leaders.
• With sentiment around the shares fairly cautious at the moment, as a result of the view that its search business is under threat, this makes a relatively inexpensive way to play the AI ecosystem.
• I don’t own Google, but it is one I am keeping an eye on should an opportunity arise.