Try Operator for grocery ordering, but verify every step

A writer tested a computer-use agent on grocery shopping and found it slower and more error-prone than placing the order himself.

Done with Operator· Intermediate

What they did
Timothy B. Lee gave OpenAI’s Operator a photo of a 16-item shopping list and asked it to extract the checked products, open a nearby Harris Teeter site, and add them to a basket. He had to step in when the agent picked the wrong items, and he also intervened after the tool logged out during a later try.
How it went
Operator missed some entries and finished with 13 of the 16 items. The second run stretched past 30 minutes and needed several fixes from Lee, while doing it manually would have taken under four minutes. The other two agents did worse.
Tips
These tools can lose track of sessions and make basic list-reading mistakes, so plan to supervise closely. For now, they make more sense for cautious assistance than for unattended checkout.

Try it yourself with Operator

Visit [grocery store website or delivery app] and make an order from this list: [paste grocery items with quantities]. Use my address: [address]. For each item, pick the cheapest option that is currently available, and tell me about any substitutions or missing items. Before you place the order or pay, pause and ask for my approval with the cart and total.

Fill in the [brackets]. Agents can make mistakes, so review anything before it is sent, paid or deleted.

Read the original on understandingai.org ↗

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