ChatGPT can now management your complete desktop. I examined it with chess

Only a few months in the past, I might barely get an AI agent to open the Chess app on my Mac, a lot much less truly play a recreation of it. However after testing the all-new ChatGPT super-app, I can report that the times of clunky AI “laptop use” performance are just about over.

Launched final Thursday, the ChatGPT super-app boasts quite a lot of options, together with the built-in Codex coding harness and ChatGPT Work, an AI agent that may faucet into your native recordsdata and create detailed reviews in seconds.

The revamped ChatGPT additionally helps “laptop use,” permitting it to take management your PC’s mouse and desktop apps. Pc use performance isn’t new—the Claude desktop app has supported it for months—but it surely is new for ChatGPT, so I made a decision to present it a go.

I fired up ChatGPT on my Mac mini, switched the app to “Work” mode, set the mannequin to GPT-5.6 Sol (the newest and best OpenAI mannequin), and gave it a easy immediate: “Are you able to play chess on my Mac?”

ChatGPT requested me to approve some new permissions, together with the power to report my display screen so it might see what it was doing. (For that purpose, it’s a good suggestion to shut any home windows with delicate data earlier than letting ChatGPT free in your desktop.) I additionally granted it permission to make use of the Chess app, with choices for “All the time enable” and “Permit this dialog” in addition to “Deny”.

Lower than 30 seconds later, the Chess app popped open, full with a purple icon within the top-left nook indicating that ChatGPT was sharing the app window.

“Sure, I opened Chess, and a brand new recreation in opposition to the pc is prepared with White to maneuver,” ChatGPT stated. “Inform me your first transfer, or say ‘play the sport’ and I’ll select the strikes.”

Now, that is the half the place I’ve seen different AI brokers flounder, with Claude unable to maneuver even a single piece after I tried to play in opposition to it 4 months in the past. Again then, it received hung up on the graphical 3D interface.

Issues went in another way throughout my take a look at with the brand new ChatGPT: GPT-5.6 Sol expertly executed eight strikes in lower than three minutes, with a lot of that point spent ready for the Mac to make its transfer. ChatGPT additionally acknowledged the Mac’s opening gambit (the Winawer variation, for these of you who know chess—I don’t) and rapidly moved to counter it.

So, is ChatGPT merely that a lot better at taking part in the Mac’s Chess recreation than Claude? I launched the Claude app, teed up the brand new flagship Fable 5 mannequin, and requested it to play Chess. This time, it managed to maneuver items simply in addition to ChatGPT did, detecting a distinct opening transfer (the Italian Recreation) and tweaking its technique accordingly.

Ben Patterson/Foundry

Returning to ChatGPT and shifting on from Chess, I requested it to open a distinct macOS app: Journal. (For the report, I solely let ChatGPT management apps I usually by no means use).

“Open the Journal app on my Mac, create a brand new entry, and write one thing about the way you’re feeling at present,” I prompted.

ChatGPT launched Journal (with the purple display screen share icon seen within the nook once more), began a brand new entry, and started writing: “Right this moment I really feel curious and quietly energized … There’s one thing satisfying about being invited right into a small, human ritual like this—a clean web page, a second of consideration, and the possibility to show a passing temper into phrases.”

Ben Patterson/Foundry

So sure, ChatGPT’s (and Claude’s) laptop use functionality is certainly a viable factor. However what’s it truly good for? Might ChatGPT arrange the random scribblings in my Notes app and shuffle them into new folders, as we noticed throughout OpenAI’s demo final week? Or take cost of Quicken and steadiness my checkbook?

In all probability. Am I keen to let it achieve this? Completely not.

OpenAI suggests some developer-focused makes use of, equivalent to testing a desktop app interface, or churning by repetitive duties like making an attempt to breed bugs. Pc use might additionally come in useful for accessing app settings that may solely be accessed by way of a graphical interface.

Nonetheless, watching ChatGPT take to my desktop like a duck to water was an eye-opening expertise. I don’t advocate letting it dive into your delicate recordsdata and apps, however I’m wondering how lengthy we nonetheless have earlier than that now not turns into an actual selection.