Top 5 ChatGPT Agent Hacks Businesses Should Know in 2025

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Good morning! Today we're gonna talk about Agent-1.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent marks a huge shift from chatbots that simply answer questions to an autonomous assistant that can actually do work on your behalf. Rather than switching between apps and copying information manually, ChatGPT Agent uses its own virtual computer and a suite of tools, including a visual browser, text browser, code interpreter, terminal, and direct API connectors, to complete complex workflows end‑to-end. During the July 2025 launch, OpenAI demonstrated that the agent could brief you on upcoming meetings, plan and purchase groceries, and analyze competitors to deliver an editable slide deck, all while prompting for your login or approval when needed. These capabilities combine the web-interaction strengths of Operator with the analytical in-depth research and conversational fluency of GPT-4o.

Today, we're going to look into new capabilities through five practical hacks that busy executives and professionals can implement immediately. Each hack highlights a workflow, explains why it matters, and illustrates a concrete business example. Utilize them to free up hours of tedious work, delegate tasks, and allocate more time to strategic initiatives.

1. Connect and orchestrate tasks across your favorite apps

The most transformational part of ChatGPT Agent is its ability to integrate with external services through connectors. After you authenticate once, the agent can securely access Gmail, Google Calendar, GitHub, and other apps to pull information or perform actions. It can switch between its visual browser, terminal, and API calls to determine the most effective way to complete a task.

Why it matters: Instead of juggling multiple tabs and copying and pasting data, you can ask the agent to handle everything. Because it acts on a virtual machine, your data stays isolated, and you must approve any high‑risk action, such as logging in or sending a form. Safety features include explicit user confirmation, a watch mode for critical steps, and the ability to delete all browsing data with a single click.

Example: “Brief me on upcoming client meetings based on recent news.” The agent reads your Google Calendar, finds next week’s meetings, and cross‑references the companies with recent articles via its text browser. It then compiles a summary and even creates a slide deck with talking points. If you prefer, you can interrupt at any time to refine the research or reorder the slides.

Try it: Connect your Gmail and Calendar via the ChatGPT connectors, and request: “Summarize yesterday’s important emails and suggest three possible meeting times next week with Sarah, avoiding conflicts on my calendar.” The agent will fetch email highlights, propose meeting times, and draft a meeting invitation, asking for your approval before sending.

2. Let ChatGPT build your presentations and spreadsheets

ChatGPT Agent doesn’t just collect information—it creates editable artifacts. According to OpenAI’s launch post, the agent can “deliver editable slideshows and spreadsheets that summarize its findings”. Built atop GPT-4o and LibreOffice, the tool produces native PowerPoint and Excel files from natural-language prompts, and early users have demonstrated its ability to build full presentations and Excel models.

Not only does the agent generate presentations and spreadsheets, but it can request your input mid-process—such as desired detail level or design style—leading to more tailored deliverables. However, be prepared to review and refine the results: speed and completeness are impressive, but design aesthetics may fall behind those of specialist tools.

Why it matters: Crafting slides or financial models is usually a time‑consuming part of knowledge work. With the agent, you can offload the first draft and focus on polishing the narrative. In internal benchmarks, the agent achieved 45.5 % accuracy on SpreadsheetBench with full .xlsx support, more than double the performance of Copilot in Excel. For math and data‑analysis tasks, the agent’s tool‑using model scored 27.4 % on the FrontierMath benchmark, far above previous OpenAI models.

Example: “Analyze three competitors and create a slide deck.” Give the agent a list of competitors and key questions. It will research pricing, product differentiators, and market share, then generate a presentation with slides for each competitor, summary charts, and footnotes citing sources. If you provide a reference template, the agent can match your brand’s colors and style; if not, it uses a clean default layout. For spreadsheets, try: “Download the last three quarterly earnings releases for Tesla and compare revenue, gross margin, and cash flow in a table.” The agent will retrieve the filings, extract the relevant numbers, and create a spreadsheet.

Pro tip: The slide deck feature is in beta and may occasionally produce basic formatting. Review the outline and adjust the design before presenting. Expect improvements as OpenAI continues to iterate on this capability.

3. Automate procurement and routine tasks

Beyond research and reporting, ChatGPT Agent can plan and execute everyday chores. OpenAI’s demo showed the agent planning a Japanese breakfast for four and purchasing ingredients. Reuters notes that it can order an outfit for a wedding, taking into account the dress code and weather. Forbes and Entrepreneur highlight similar scenarios, such as generating slide decks, purchasing ingredients, submitting expense reports, and even shopping online—all from a single prompt.

Why it matters: Many professionals waste time toggling between procurement sites, expense tools, and spreadsheets. The agent’s ability to carry out purchases (with permission) and schedule recurring tasks, such as weekly spreadsheet updates, turns it into a personal assistant that never forgets.

Example: “Prepare a budget and order supplies for next week’s team offsite.” The agent can research venues, compare catering costs, compile an itemized budget in a spreadsheet, and place the orders after you confirm. For expense reports, try: “Submit this receipt to our expense platform and categorize it under travel.” After logging in with your credentials via browser takeover, the agent will upload the receipt, complete the form, and request final approval before submitting.

Note: Purchases and form submissions always require explicit consent or watch‑mode approval. At launch, the agent cannot initiate bank transfers or high‑risk transactions.

With Agent Mode, you can automate repetitive workflows. For example, ask the agent to audit your inbox daily, generate weekly sales reports, or schedule calendar reviews on a custom schedule. Set it and forget it; the agent handles it until you tell it to stop.

4. Deploy the agent for deep research with trustworthy sources

OpenAI’s unified agentic model excels at long, multi-step research tasks. It's planner breaks tasks into steps, its controller executes them, and its environment interface navigates between web browsing, code execution, and file creation. The agent can log in to websites to access gated content, extract data using the text browser, and produce summaries or reports.

Why it matters: Instead of reading dozens of articles, you can delegate information gathering to the agent. Because it cites sources, you can quickly verify accuracy. On benchmarks such as Humanity’s Last Exam (a multidisciplinary exam), the agent’s model achieved a pass@1 score of 41.6%, rising to 44.4% with parallel runs, outperforming previous models. In DSBench, which measures performance on real-world data science tasks, the agent significantly outperformed human analysts. These results suggest the agent can synthesize complex information reliably.

Example: “Compare the profitability of Tesla, Rivian, and Ford over the past three years and create a report with charts.” The agent will download annual reports, scrape revenue and profit data, compute ratios using its code interpreter, and generate a slide deck and spreadsheet. Another use: ask it to monitor news about your industry and send a summary every Monday morning. You can even schedule these recurring reports.

Caveats: As with any research, double‑check the sources and numbers. The agent uses web browsing and may encounter paywalls or restricted pages. It is trained to reject prompt‑injection attempts and malicious content, but you should still avoid giving it confidential information it doesn’t need. Some tasks—like reading extremely long documents or highly technical research—may require manual refinement.

5. Embrace safety and control for peace of mind

Granting an AI agent the ability to click buttons and submit forms raises obvious questions about privacy and security. OpenAI baked several safeguards into the ChatGPT Agent:

• User consent and watch mode: The agent always requests permission before taking actions with real-world impact (such as purchases, form submissions, or emails). For sensitive actions, such as sending emails, it may require you to monitor in real-time. Tom’s Guide notes that OpenAI prioritizes “caution over capability,” training the agent to refuse ambiguous or high‑risk requests.

• Prompt‑injection defenses: The agent resists hidden instructions on web pages, uses monitors to detect suspicious outputs, and requires user confirmation to prevent unintended actions.

• Privacy controls: You can delete all browsing data and log out of every session with one click. The agent does not store passwords or personal data entered via takeover mode.

• Access limits and availability: The service is rolling out to Pro, Plus, and Team users; free users must upgrade to access the service. Pro users receive 400 agent prompts per month, while Plus and Team users get 40. The Enterprise and Education tiers will follow, with access in Europe expected later in the summer.

• Limitations: Slide‑deck generation is still in beta and may produce rudimentary formatting. The agent avoids tasks like bank transfers or executing code outside its environment and may refuse ambiguous or dual‑use tasks such as those involving biosecurity.

Example: When instructing the agent to fill in a tax form or purchase supplies, it will display each step in its virtual browser and pause for your confirmation. If the site shows any hidden prompts or unusual content, the agent’s monitor will flag the issue and ask you to take over.

My Take

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent feels like the moment when AI shifts from being a helpful colleague to becoming a true digital coworker. In my own tests, the ability to describe a goal and watch the agent click, scroll, and generate deliverables was both thrilling and humbling. For simple tasks, like compiling meeting notes or drafting slides, automation frees up mental bandwidth. For complex research, such as comparing competitors or mapping market trends, the agent accelerates data gathering and summarization.

However, it’s not perfect. Slide decks sometimes need aesthetic tweaks; research summaries may miss a nuance. The biggest leap is mental: trusting a tool to act on your behalf requires understanding the safeguards and being comfortable interrupting when needed. As OpenAI continues to iterate, I expect the agent to become a standard productivity companion, alongside email and calendar apps. For now, pick one workflow that drains your time and let ChatGPT Agent handle it. You might discover that “working with AI” no longer means typing prompts into a chat—it means delegating entire processes and supervising the results.

Editor’s Note: If you found this evolution exciting, it’s worth knowing that AI agents aren’t just inside apps like ChatGPT—they’re coming to browsers too. Want a preview? Check out my review of Perplexity’s Comet, the first agentic browser that’s already changing how power users get work done. Agents are the next frontier—on the web, at work, and beyond. Read: Perplexity Comet – A Week with the AI Browser That’s Actually Useful (and a Little Scary)

How will you use ChatGPT Agent?

I’m curious to hear how other professionals are experimenting with this tool. Have you asked ChatGPT Agent to research a market and build a report? Did it draft your next board presentation? Or maybe it organized your next family vacation? Share your stories and tips below. Real examples help everyone understand what’s possible and how to use this technology responsibly.

Keep learning, and, above all, keep moving first.

— Dr. Hernani Costa

FAQs

How do I enable ChatGPT Agent? 

If you’re a Pro, Plus, or Team subscriber, open any ChatGPT conversation, click the tools menu, and select Agent Mode. The feature runs on a separate virtual machine, and you’ll see the agent’s actions step by step. Free users are currently unable to access the agent.

Can the agent log into my accounts? 

Yes, but only with your consent. When it needs to access a site requiring authentication (e.g., Gmail, Google Calendar), ChatGPT will prompt you to take over the browser and enter your credentials. The agent does not store your password and will continue once you’ve logged in.

What kinds of tasks should I avoid? 

OpenAI’s policies restrict the agent from performing high-risk actions, such as bank transfers, sending sensitive emails without oversight, or assisting with dual-use biological tasks. You should also avoid exposing confidential data or relying on it for legal or medical decisions. When in doubt, supervise or perform the task manually.

Where can I find even more tips, tricks, and comparisons for ChatGPT?

If you’re interested in going deeper into ChatGPT’s capabilities, top use cases, and the latest updates, check out the dedicated ChatGPT archive from First AI Movers. Here, you’ll find:

• Easy-to-follow guides for getting the most out of ChatGPT and its new Agent mode

• Model comparisons (GPT-4o vs 4.5 vs o3-pro) to help you pick the right tool for your workflow

• Power user tips: how to maximize context windows, leverage integrations, and save hours weekly

• Real-world business stories and benchmarks

• Expert commentary on AI trends, security, and best practices

👉 Visit the archive: First AI Movers ChatGPT Archive

You’ll find answers to questions like:

• “Which ChatGPT model should I use and when?”

• “What are the best workflows for business automation in 2025?”

• “How can I unlock hidden features for power users?”

Take your ChatGPT skills to the next level—read more at the archive!

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