OpenAI's AI Agent Operator Could Boost Instacart, Uber, DoorDash: Analyst

OpenAI on Thursday released a research preview of a new AI agent called “Operator,” which uses the internet to perform a range of tasks.

Analysts are weighing in on which publicly traded companies could benefit from the collaboration.

Expert Ideas: Bank of America Securities analysts, led by Michael McGovern, highlighted Operator's capabilities. For example, it can:

• Book rides from Uber Technologies, Inc. UBER
• Order from restaurants using DoorDash DASH and
• Add items to an order on Maplebear, Inc.'s CART Instacart platform. 

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BofA pointed to OpenAI's demonstration of Operator which shows the AI agent ordering food from Instacart using a recipe to add each ingredient to the shopping cart. The firm sees AI agents as especially helpful with "complex basket-building" of online grocery orders. 

"In our view, grocery ordering online could become significantly easier with AI Agents, and expect DASH & Uber would likely have the most relative benefit," the analysts wrote.  

The collaborations with Uber, Instacart and DoorDash are in the early stages and BofA expects the possibility of long-term partnerships allowing for more streamlined and/or additional services offered.  

OpenAI said that Operator employs a "Computer-Using Agent" model, which integrates GPT-4o's vision capabilities with advanced reasoning through reinforcement learning. This allows it to interact with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) without custom API integrations.

Operator is currently available to subscribers of OpenAI’s $200-per-month Pro tier in the U.S. and BofA expects expansion to subscribers on the $20-per-month tier later in 2025.  

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