OpenAI is building AI agents for everything. Will everyone use them?
OpenAI is pushing beyond its core chatbot to build AI agents capable of autonomously completing complex, multi-step tasks across professions, not just for software engineers. Its flagship effort, ChatGPT Work, adapts the company's Codex coding tool for white-collar workers such as accountants, investors and doctors, granting AI systems deep access to email, Slack, phone and apps like Notion and Figma. This matters because it represents OpenAI's biggest commercial bet to date: longer-running agentic tasks consume more tokens and revenue, and expanding beyond coding is seen as essential for AI labs to justify their enormous investment in computing and training.
ChatGPT Work launched last month and is available on OpenAI's cheapest $20-a-month tier. Company figures such as lead desktop engineer Andrew Ambrosino and product chief Thibault Sottiaux describe adapting Codex, which was originally hostile and confusing to non-engineers, into a more general-purpose tool between February and August 2026. The approach requires users to grant agents wide-ranging access to personal data, raising privacy trade-offs Ambrosino says he accepts for the sake of the job. OpenAI faces competition from vertical-specific, model-agnostic rivals such as Harvey (law) and Clay (sales), with analysts including Christian Catalini of a16z warning that AI labs risk losing value to other players if they cannot quickly secure the complementary assets needed to scale adoption beyond software development.
- OpenAI's ChatGPT Work extends AI agents beyond coding to all office jobs.
- Agents get deep access to email, Slack, Notion, Figma and more.
- Rivals like Harvey and Clay threaten OpenAI's push into new professions.
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OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is trying to move beyond simple chatbot conversations towards "AI agents" that can carry out longer, multi-step tasks on their own, such as researching, drafting and organising work much like a human assistant would. Its main product for this is called ChatGPT Work, which builds on Codex, a tool originally designed to help software engineers write code, and adapts it for a much wider range of professions including accountants, investors and doctors.
To do this kind of work, these agents need access to a person's everyday digital tools, such as email, Slack, and apps like Notion and Figma, which raises questions about privacy and how much control users are handing over. This matters because OpenAI has invested heavily in the computing power needed to run AI, and expanding into everyday office tasks, rather than just coding, is seen as key to making that investment pay off commercially.
OpenAI is not alone in this space. It faces competition from smaller companies that build AI tools tailored to specific industries, such as Harvey for law and Clay for sales, and some analysts question whether OpenAI can win over these professions quickly enough before rivals establish themselves.