Get Ready for AI Chatbots That Do Your Boring Chores

Move over, Siri. Startups are using the technology behind ChatGPT to build more capable AI agents that can control your computer and access the web to get things done—with sometimes chaotic results.

A couple of weeks ago, startup CEO Flo Crivello typed a message asking his personal assistant Lindy to change the length of an upcoming meeting from 30 to 45 minutes. Lindy, a software agent that happens to be powered by artificial intelligence, found a dozen or so 30-minute meetings on Crivello’s calendar and promptly extended them all.

“I was like ‘God dammit, she kind of destroyed my calendar,’” Crivello says of the AI agent, which is being developed by his startup, also called Lindy.

Crivello’s company is one of several startups hoping to parlay recent strides in chatbots that produce impressive text into assistants or agents capable of performing useful tasks ...