AI agents at work: what actually works

In brief

An agent is an AI you give a result to deliver, not a question: it prepares a plan, searches, uses your files and your apps, then delivers finished work. Today, this works for collecting public information, producing a first draft of a report or a presentation, and redoing a task on a schedule. For anything that sends, pays, or deletes, keep the approval step: an agent can get a figure, a field, or a button wrong.

What an agent is

With an assistant, you ask a question and you get an answer. With an agent, you describe a result: “prepare Thursday’s committee deck from these three files.” It breaks the work into steps, runs them one after another, and hands you a deliverable. You can do something else in the meantime.

Today you find them in four forms.

In your usual assistant. “Work” mode in ChatGPT, Cowork in Claude, multi-step tasks in Mistral Vibe, “Computer” at Perplexity.
General-purpose agents. Manus and Genspark work on a virtual computer reserved for them, with a browser and files.
In the browser. Comet can click and fill in a form on sites where you are signed in, after asking your permission.
In an automation. Zapier and Make chain fixed rules (when this happens, do that) and can slip in a step handled by an AI.

What works today

Collecting public information on a long list: twenty competitors, eighty prospects, the prices of five suppliers, organized in a table.
Producing a first draft: a report, a comparison table, a presentation. It is fast, and it is still a draft to rework.
Working on a folder of files: sorting, renaming, turning receipts into an expense report, from a folder you open for it.
Redoing a task on a schedule: the Monday update, a monitoring brief every morning. For scheduled tasks, ChatGPT allows 3 from the free plan and Mistral Vibe 5; with Claude, you need the Pro plan.
Applying a simple rule, without mistakes: every completed form becomes a row in a spreadsheet. Here, a classic automation with fixed rules is more predictable than an agent that decides.

What they have in common: tasks where a mistake shows and can be fixed, and where you review before the result leaves your hands.

What works less well

High-stakes tasks. An agent can state something false with confidence. Anything involving money, law, or health gets checked in full.
Actions on a website. When it acts for you, an agent can pick the wrong field or the wrong button. Review before a send, an order, or a payment.
Booby-trapped pages. A web page can contain hidden instructions meant to mislead an assistant. Do not let it act on a site you do not know.
Speed. It is not instant: with Manus, a presentation takes 5 to 15 minutes.
Availability in Europe. Several announced agents are not yet offered in France, such as Google’s new Gemini agent.

And the cost is hard to predict. Most agents are paid for in credits, spent according to how long the task runs. At Perplexity, a task costs from 100 to several thousand credits, and 100 credits are worth $1.

Which agent, at what price

Plans and prices checked on October 3, 2026 on the vendors’ pages.

Tool	What it does	The plan you need
ChatGPT, “Work” mode	Plans, searches, uses your connected apps, and returns a document, a spreadsheet, or a presentation	Plus, $20 per month; limited access on the free plan on desktop
Claude, Cowork	Reads the files in a folder you open for it, searches, and delivers the finished document	Pro, $20 per month. A task uses far more of your quota than a conversation
Mistral Vibe	Carries out a multi-step task in front of you, and asks for your approval before sending an email	Free, with a limited number of messages; Pro, €14.99 per month excl. tax
Perplexity, Computer	From research all the way to the document, the presentation, or the website	Pro, $20 per month: 4,000 credits granted once, valid for 30 days. Max, $200 per month: 10,000 credits per month
Manus	Carries out a long task on its own, on its virtual computer	Free: 300 credits per day, 1,500 per month at most, one task at a time. Pro: from $20 per month
Genspark	Presentations, spreadsheets, research, and even a phone call	Free: 100 credits per day, up to a cap. Plus: $24.99 per month

If you already pay for ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro, you have an agent: start with it. At work with Microsoft 365, Copilot has its own Cowork mode, which the company has to turn on. A specialized agent is only worth it for a specific, recurring need.

Six rules before you delegate

Start with a low-stakes task, on public information, to see how the agent goes about it.
Open one specific folder, never your whole disk. The agent only needs the files for the task.
Keep approval for anything that writes, sends, or pays. Reserve standing permission for read-only actions.
Look at your credit balance before you launch. A task run three times is paid for three times.
Keep it away from sensitive sites: banking, payroll, personnel files.
Review everything it returns, figure by figure, before you pass it on.

For company data, ask your IT team: not every vendor says where it hosts what you give it. See what not to share with AI at work.

What Nova brings

Nova is subscription software. Its demos show agents at work on office tasks, with the prompt ready, the plan required, and the precautions: customer records entered into software, the prices of five suppliers collected in a table, a folder tidied up. Try the interactive demo.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an AI assistant and an AI agent?

An assistant answers one request at a time. An agent receives a goal, prepares a plan, chains the steps (search, read, write, click), and returns a finished result. The line is fading: ChatGPT and Claude now bring both together in the same place.

Can an AI agent really work on its own?

On bounded tasks, yes: research on a long list, a first draft of a presentation, a report that comes back every week. It does not replace your review, and it must not send, pay, or delete without your approval.

How much does an AI agent cost?

The entry price is often the assistant’s: $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro. Specialized agents count in credits: Manus from $20 per month, Genspark at $24.99 per month. The real cost depends on the number and length of the tasks.

Is it risky to let an AI act on my computer?

Three habits reduce the risk: open a single folder, require your approval before every action that changes or sends something, and do not let it act on an unknown or sensitive site. On a company computer, get your IT team’s approval first.

Agent or automation: which should you choose?

An automation, with Zapier or Make, applies fixed, predictable rules: it is the right choice when the task is always the same. An agent fits when it has to search, read, and judge along the way.

Sources

Chat, Work, and Codex, OpenAI, help center
Claude pricing, Anthropic
Mistral pricing, Mistral AI
Perplexity pricing, Perplexity
Comet Assistant: privacy and data use (in French), Perplexity, help center
Manus pricing, Manus
Genspark membership plans, Genspark, help center
Zapier pricing, Zapier
Make pricing, Make

AI that acts for you: what actually works today