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This massive upgrade to ChatGPT is coming in January — and it’s not GPT-5

OpenAI announced on Wednesday that it plans to release a new AI agent feature that will be able to act on a user's behalf.

OpenAI is set to launch a new AI agent in January, code-named Operator, that will enable ChatGPT to take action on the user’s behalf. You may never have to book your own flights ever again.

The company’s leadership made the announcement during a staff meeting Wednesday, reports Bloomberg. The company plans to roll out the new feature as a research preview through the company’s developer API.

AI agents differ significantly from traditional programs. Rather than follow a set of predefined instructions, agents can autonomously perceive their environment, process information, and make decisions to perform tasks or solve problems, such as generating complex computer code or booking travel arrangements.

OpenAI is not alone in its efforts. Anthropic recently released its Computer Control feature, which enables the model to manipulate a desktop environment in the same way human users would. Microsoft similarly unveiled its AI agent feature in late October. It’s designed to handle monotonous office work like managing employee records and drafting emails. Google is also working on AI agents of its own, code-named Jarvis, and could preview it by the end of the year.

“We will have better and better models,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote during a Reddit AMA  session last month. “But I think the thing that will feel like the next giant breakthrough will be agents.” According to Bloomberg’s sources, OpenAI is working on multiple styles of AI agent, with the most production-ready version being a general assistant that will be able to take action through a web browser.

The announcement comes as leading AI developers face severe diminishing returns to the rate of their frontier models’ advancement and skyrocketing energy and water requirements. The hope here, apparently, is that if developers can’t simply brute force the upcoming GPT-5 model into better performance metrics, they’ll make them more useful instead.

Nearly a month after announcing the GPT-6.1 Sol model, OpenAI unveiled GPT-6.1 Terra today. The latest addition to the family focuses on computer use, visual reasoning, coding, and professional work, while costing 50% less through the API than GPT-5.6 Terra.

OpenAI says Terra can handle everything from filling out browser forms and working inside spreadsheets to interpreting technical drawings and editing videos. The company says it can also complete computer-based tasks more than three times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol.

ASUS has started selling its UGen Intel Arc Pro B70 graphics card in Europe, bringing its take on Intel’s workstation GPU to customers with a hefty €1,799 recommended price. The card is available in Germany and Austria, while ASUS lists it at CHF 1,799 in Switzerland.

Intel first introduced the Arc Pro B70 in March 2026, with its own branded model starting at $949. ASUS’s version arrives several months later with the same core GPU architecture but a different cooling design and a higher power rating. The price also places it well above Intel’s original starting point, although the two prices are not directly comparable because ASUS’s European figure includes VAT.

Anthropic has officially filed to go public, and buried inside its S-1 is a blunt warning about the technology at the center of its business. The maker of Claude AI says advanced AI could cause everything from large-scale cyberattacks and geopolitical instability to catastrophic or even existential risks for humanity.

The warnings take up a surprisingly large part of the filing. Axios notes that more than 90 pages, or roughly a third of the prospectus, focus on risk factors. Many of them warn about what could happen as AI systems become more capable and autonomous.