I’m discussing replacement options for our broken couch with my partner when I get a bright idea: Use OpenAI’s recently announced AI agents, called Dots, to buy a couch on our behalf.

My partner is less sure a bot will actually help, but I insist, calling the always-on agent through ChatGPT to get the task started. “Hello, Connor,” it says, getting my name wrong off the bat. I wince as I watch my partner’s face grow even more skeptical. It’s hard to trust an AI agent when it can’t even remember your name.

AI agents are currently leaping from niche software for early adopters to something ordinary people might actually use—might being the operative word here. From Meta’s Muse to OpenAI’s Dots, these tools are built to feel like you’re texting a friend and asking them to complete online tasks, like booking a flight or canceling a dinner reservation. It’s the next evolution of a chatbot: a cuddly persona designed to feel welcoming with the power of a virtual browser it can control.

After a few days with Dots, it’s clear this nascent feature is still rough in some areas. From mistranscribing what I said to offering to solve captchas it couldn’t, my agent's messy actions didn’t instill me with confidence. Even so, what OpenAI released may eventually overhaul how users interact with the internet, as future iterations improve on this initial offering.