AI Agents Are Taking Over

This Week

AI Agents Are Taking Over

AI agents are everywhere right now. OpenAI has Operator. Google dropped AgentSpace. Microsoft is rolling out Copilot Agents. Salesforce and HubSpot have their own in the mix. It feels like every company is racing to launch an AI agent.

But what do these agents actually do? And more importantly, which ones are worth your time?

This week, I’m breaking it all down for you. Here’s what’s inside:

• AI Agents Explained (Like You’re Five)

• OpenAI’s Operator: A New AI Agent That Can Navigate the Web for You

• Microsoft’s Copilot Actions and Agents: What They Can Do and How to Set Them Up

• Salesforce AgentForce vs. HubSpot’s Breeze and Agent.ai

• Google’s Agentspace Still in Waitlist Mode

AI agents are here.

AI Agents Explained (Like You’re Five)

Still trying to make sense of AI agents?

Vishal Teckchandani simplifies it perfectly: “It’s the difference between knowing how to do something and actually doing it.”

AI agents work through a four-step process: they take input from the user, process it to analyze the best course of action, perform the action (like sending an email or resolving a task), and then learn from the outcome to improve over time.

This continuous loop of input, processing, action, and learning makes agents very effective at managing tasks and solving problems autonomously.

Want the whole explanation? Watch Vishal break it down in this YouTube video here.

OpenAI’s New AI Agent: Is It Worth $200/Month?

Imagine having a personal assistant who uses your computer for you—clicking buttons, filling out forms, and even booking that dream Rome tour while you sip your morning coffee.

Meet Operator, OpenAI’s latest AI agent that bridges the gap between thinking and doing.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Browser Automation: It navigates websites like a human (scrolling TripAdvisor, closing pop-ups, sorting reviews) to book tours, order groceries, or meme-ify your cat.

• Sees & Acts: Powered by GPT-4o’s vision, Operator takes screenshots, “reads” your screen, and uses mouse/keyboard actions to get stuff done.

• Safety First: Need to type a password or pay for something? It hands control back to you.

It’s still early days. While Operator completes some of the tasks pretty well (research and travel bookings, for example), it still struggles with complex apps (like calendars and presentations). 

Operator is available for U.S. ChatGPT Pro users. If you don’t want to pay the $200/month OpenAI promises it’s coming to Plus and Enterprise accounts sometime soon. 

If you’re looking for all the details, this demo has the most practical use cases, or you can head over to the OpenAI blog for the official announcement and launch videos. 

Build Your Own AI Agents in Microsoft Copilot

If you’re a Microsoft 365 user, you’re in luck—you already have access to Copilot Actions and Agents.

Copilot Actions handle the everyday tasks: drafting emails, summarizing documents, creating presentations, and scheduling meetings.

Copilot Agents, on the other hand, tackle the bigger stuff. Here are a few of the things they can do:

• The Interpreter Agent in Teams provides real-time speech-to-speech translation during meetings - it can even simulate your voice.

• The Employee Self-Service Agent answers common HR and IT questions and makes admin tasks easier (like ordering a laptop).

• The Facilitator Agent takes real-time notes in Teams meetings and chats.

• Project Manager Agent automates project plans, creates tasks, and can even complete them in Microsoft Planner.

And if you don’t like the templated Agents, you can customize them in Copilot Studio to fit your exact needs.

Learn more about Copilot Actions and Agents here.

The AI Agent Race: Salesforce vs. Hubspot

The race to dominate the AI agent space is heating up, with Salesforce and HubSpot rolling out their own offerings late last year. 

Salesforce AgentForce integrates into Salesforce’s CRM, so you can manage customer interactions, sales pipelines, and service tickets, for example. Its standout features are multi-modal search, (this makes it easy to find information across your company) and the ability to automate large-scale workflows.

Users say that AgentForce is a powerful tool for large teams but can feel a bit rigid if your needs don’t fit its predefined templates.

HubSpot’s Breeze and Agent.ai cater to smaller teams and growing businesses. Breeze automates some of your marketing and sales tasks. It can draft email campaigns, manage your social content, and report on sales performance.

Compared to other CRMs users say Breeze is more straightforward to talk with and more capable of understanding nuance. Agent.ai is a marketplace for AI Agents (built by Hubspot founder Dharmesh Shah). You can “hire” a content creator, an ICP builder, a meme maker, a prospector, a LinkedIn analyzer…, and the list goes on.

Is Google Falling Behind on AI Agents?

Google announced Agentspace back in December, but it’s still in waitlist mode, so you can’t use it yet.

Agentspace isn’t as far-reaching as some of the other Agents, and seems to focus mostly on multi-modal search (allowing users to search across an organization's platforms) and NotebookLM, which lets you interact with collections of documents and turn them into a podcast.

If you’re a Google Workspace user, Agentspace feels like a small step forward rather than a leap. Its usefulness is pretty limited at the moment, but it has the potential to grow into something more impactful down the line.

Sign up for Early Access here.