In the past six months, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others have released web-browsing agents that are designed to complete tasks independently, with only minimal input from humans. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has even called AI agents “the next giant breakthrough.”  On today’s episode, we'll dive into what makes these agents different from other forms of machine intelligence, and whether their capabilities can live up to the hype.

You can follow our hosts on Bluesky—Michael Calore is @snackfight, Lauren Goode is @laurengoode, and Katie Drummond is @katie-drummond.