Anthropic, the Amazon-backed AI startup founded by former OpenAI research executives, announced Tuesday that AI agents can use a computer to complete complex tasks like a human would.
TakeAway Points:
- The Amazon-backed AI business Anthropic, which was started by former OpenAI research executives, has revealed artificial intelligence agents that can perform hard jobs on a computer just like a human.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are designed to be productive and to carry out complicated, multi-step activities for users.
- They are usually made for particular business purposes and can be tailored for big AI models.
Anthropic debuts AI agents
Anthropic is the company behind Claude — one of the chatbots that, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, has exploded in popularity. Startups like Anthropic, alongside tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta, are all part of a generative AI arms race to ensure they don’t fall behind in a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.
Anthropic’s new Computer Use capability, part of its two newest AI models, allows its tech to interpret what’s on a computer screen, select buttons, enter text, navigate websites and execute tasks through any software and real-time internet browsing.
The tool can “use computers in basically the same way that we do,” Jared Kaplan, Anthropic’s chief science officer, said in an interview, adding it can do tasks with “tens or even hundreds of steps.”
Amazon had early access to the tool, Anthropic said, and early customers and beta testers included Asana, Canva and Notion. The company has been working on the tool since early this year, according to Kaplan.
Anthropic released the feature Tuesday in public beta for developers. The team hopes to open up use to consumers and enterprise clients over the next few months, or early next year, per Kaplan.
Anthropic said that future consumer applications include booking flights, scheduling appointments, filling out forms, conducting online research, and filing expense reports.
“We want Claude to be able to actually assist people with all sorts of different kinds of work, and we think the chatbot setup is fairly limited because you can ask a question and [get] context but it stops there,” Kaplan said.
AI agent
After the viral popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the industry quickly moved past text responses into AI-generated photos, videos and voice. Now, startups and Big Tech alike are going all in on AI agents.
Rather than just providing answers — the realm of chatbots and image generators — agents are built for productivity and to complete multistep, complex tasks on a user’s behalf. And though the term isn’t neatly defined across the tech sector, AI agents are viewed as a step beyond chatbots in that they’re typically designed for specific business functions and can be customized on large AI models. Think of J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark’s multifaceted AI assistant from the Marvel Universe.
Grace Isford, a partner at venture firm Lux Capital, said in June that there’s been a “dramatic increase” in interest among tech investors in startups focused on building AI agents. They’ve collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars and seen their valuations climb alongside the broader generative AI market.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on an earnings call earlier this year that he wants to offer an AI agent that can complete more tasks on a user’s behalf, though there is “a lot of execution ahead.” Executives from Meta and Google have also touted their work in pushing AI agents to become increasingly productive.
