OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work on July 9, a new agent inside ChatGPT built to take a goal, pull context from a user's connected apps and files, and deliver finished output rather than a draft for further editing. The release landed the same day OpenAI took its GPT-5.6 model family public, and ChatGPT Work runs on GPT-5.6 alongside Codex, OpenAI's coding-agent model.

What the agent does

Rather than answering in a single chat turn, ChatGPT Work is designed to gather information across a person's apps and workflows and produce completed materials — spreadsheets, slide decks, documents and simple web apps — by breaking a complex request into smaller steps it executes on its own, staying with a project for hours if the task requires it. The launch also brings Scheduled Tasks to the product: users can have ChatGPT perform an action once, repeat it on a recurring schedule, or trigger it off an event, such as refreshing a recurring meeting agenda whenever a connected Slack channel updates. As part of the release, OpenAI folded its standalone Codex app into the ChatGPT desktop app, so chat, agentic "Work" tasks and coding now live in one client.

Rollout

Availability is staggered by plan and platform. On the ChatGPT desktop app, OpenAI says the agent is available to every plan, including Free. On web and mobile, it started rolling out first to Pro, Enterprise and Edu accounts, with Plus and Business subscribers gaining access over the following days.

Why it matters

ChatGPT Work pushes OpenAI further into the "agent that finishes the job" category already being contested by rivals' coding and computer-use agents, but aimed squarely at general office work — spreadsheets, slides and documents — rather than software engineering alone. Tying the feature to Scheduled Tasks also moves ChatGPT from a tool a person actively prompts toward one that monitors connected systems and acts on triggers without a person re-opening the app each time. That shift raises the same questions now facing every "autonomous" product launch this year: how much oversight a user retains once an agent is running unattended for hours, and how OpenAI will handle mistakes made mid-task across a person's real documents and accounts rather than in a sandboxed test.