Dive Brief:
- OpenAI is releasing several tools to help enterprises build more reliable agents on its platform, the AI provider said Tuesday.
- The new Responses API allows developers to combine OpenAI models and built-in tools, such as the recently added web search, file search and computer use capabilities, when building AI agents without needing to integrate multiple APIs or external vendors, OpenAI said.
- The ChatGPT-maker is also adding an agent software development kit, called Agents SDK, for orchestrating single or multiple agent workflows. The kit includes observability tools to monitor execution.
Dive Insight:
Technology providers have rushed to release tools to boost the adoption of AI agents as enterprise interest in the technology rises.
Cloud hyperscalers and software giants are all in. Google introduced enterprise customers to its Agentspace service in December, Microsoft expanded its AI agent portfolio last week and AWS made its multi-agent collaboration capabilities on Amazon Bedrock generally available Monday. Salesforce, ServiceNow and SAP, to name a few, have also embarked on a mission to lower adoption barriers of agentic tools and systems.
AI companies once known for their large language model development are also turning their attention to providing tools and services related to AI agents. Anthropic released a command line tool for agentic coding, called Claude Code, in a limited research preview last month.
Before OpenAI expanded its portfolio Tuesday, the ChatGPT-maker released Operator as part of a research preview in January, offering customers access to an agent that performs tasks requiring the web.
OpenAI’s agent building blocks
Courtesy of OpenAI
“As model capabilities become more and more agentic, we’ll continue investing in deeper integrations across our APIs and new tools to help deploy, evaluate and optimize agents in production,” OpenAI said in the Tuesday announcement. “Our goal is to give developers a seamless platform experience for building agents that can help with a variety of tasks across any industry.”
OpenAI said its Responses API offering is available to customers without additional charges.
Since ChatGPT’s 2022 release, OpenAI has garnered around 2 million paying enterprise users, COO Brad Lightcap told CNBC last month. While the provider spurred cross-industry interest in generative AI, its place as the leading AI startup has come under scrutiny. Rising competition and evolving sentiments, such as an enterprise emphasis on cost, are driving factors for the shift.
