July 9 (Reuters) - OpenAI on Thursday unveiled ChatGPT Work, an agent in its popular chatbot designed to execute tasks across different applications and files, marking the startup's latest push into workplace automation.
ChatGPT Work, powered by OpenAI's advanced AI model GPT-5.6, can gather context from apps, files and workflows to create finished documents, spreadsheets, presentations, reports and websites, the company said.
The launch reflects intensifying competition to build and sell AI tools
for professional use, as technology companies seek to capitalize on rising demand for autonomous agents that can complete complex tasks with minimal human input.
Before this launch, OpenAI's agentic offerings included Operator and deep research, later consolidated into ChatGPT Agent for individual users, as well as Workspace Agents for enterprise workflow automation.
ChatGPT Work comes months after OpenAI rival Anthropic stepped up its enterprise push with Claude Cowork, an agent capable of planning and executing multi-step tasks autonomously.
Earlier this year, Anthropic launched plug-ins for its Claude Cowork agent to automate tasks in legal, sales, marketing, and data analysis. The move triggered a sharp selloff in U.S. and European software and professional services stocks on fears of widespread AI-driven disruption to the data analytics industry.
Shortly after Anthropic, Microsoft, an OpenAI backer, also unveiled Copilot Cowork to build out its agentic AI offering.
OpenAI, which is preparing for an IPO, also announced a new ChatGPT desktop application and a hosted websites feature to let users build and share websites directly through ChatGPT Work.
ChatGPT Work will roll out on Thursday on web and mobile, beginning with Pro, Enterprise, and Edu users, and will expand to Plus and Business users over the next few days.
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Joyjeet Das and Maju Samuel)
