Unpacking AI Agents

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. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com. You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link.