Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast - Ep 569: ChatGPT’s upcoming Agent Mode release: Microsoft competitor?

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

We're hours away from OpenAI's livestream announcement of what's reportedly called Agent Mode. There's been a few lines of reporting of what's coming!We tackle the rumors, what they mean, and how to be prepared for what this means for our day-to-day work lives. Square keeps up so you don't have to slow down. Get everything you need to run and grow your business—without any long-term commitments. And why wait? Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com/go/jordan. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today.Newsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageJoin the discussion:Thoughts on this? Join the convo and connect with other AI leaders on LinkedIn.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: [e-mail] with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:ChatGPT Agent Mode Release RumorsChatGPT vs Microsoft Office CompetitionPotential Excel and PowerPoint IntegrationDeep Research and Agent Mode FeaturesOpenAI Operator and Browser UpdatesImpact on Microsoft Office Business ModelWorkflow Automation and App ConnectorsProductivity Tool Advancements for Knowledge WorkersTimestamps:00:00 "OpenAI's New Agent Announcement"04:56 OpenAI's New Features Reveal Tomorrow07:35 Microsoft-OpenAI Integration: Enhanced ChatGPT Features10:28 "ChatGPT-Powered Document Creation"13:42 "AI Tools for Visual Presentations"17:18 OpenAI's Enhanced Operator Unveiled19:55 "Anticipating Software Agent Reveal"25:28 AI Evolution: New Industry NormsKeywords:ChatGPT agent, OpenAI, agent mode, Microsoft Office competitor, Excel automation, PowerPoint automation, generative AI tools, spreadsheet AI, presentation AI, Operator, OpenAI browser, Canvas mode, Advanced Data Analysis, Microsoft Copilot, document management AI, workflow automation, browser automation, deep research, computer using agent, data analysis AI, GPT-4o image generation, Google Drive integration, report generation, database analysis, visual creation AI, productivity tool, chat-based document editing, slide generation, formula automation, business productivity AI, AI-powered presentations, AI-powered spreadsheets, AI advaSend Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Start Here ▶️Not sure where to start when it comes to AI? Start with our Start Here Series. You can listen to the first drop -- Episode 691 -- or get free access to our Inner Cricle community and all episodes: StartHereSeries.com Also, here's a link to the entire series on a Spotify playlist. 

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A recent report that we shared in our newsletter recently detailed this. And now we have an official announcement date from OpenAI in about four hours. So what could this new chat GPT agent do? and how might it change the way that we all work? Well, we're going to be answering hopefully some of those questions and a whole lot more today on everyday AI. What's going on to you? My name is Jordan Wilson and welcome to Everyday AI. This is your daily live stream podcast and free dealing newsletter, helping everyday people like you and me,

not just keep up with all these AI developments, but how we can leverage all of this information to grow our companies and our careers. If that's what you're trying to do, it starts here with this. this unedited, unscripted, live stream and podcast, but it continues on in our newsletter. So go to your everyday a.com, sign up for that free daily newsletter. And we're going to be keeping you up to date. Well, with this story in particular, because actually, by the time you're listening to this podcast, if it's past like noon central standard time, the announcement's already out. So we're going to be setting out our newsletter, probably right about 12, 30 p.m. Central

standard time, if you want to know exactly what's happening. but let's get into what we actually know. And yeah, we're going to have all the other daily AI news in the newsletter. So let's talk about this new chat GPT agent. Pretty big. At least some of the reporting and what we're seeing, some recent leaks that are just a couple hours old, looks like this could be one of open AI's biggest releases to date.

So during today's show, we're going to explain these rumors on open AIs release, which will drop in hours. We're going to investigate how it might impact Microsoft offices line of business. And we're going to talk about how this will impact your work and my work. All right. And here's why it matters. And again, there's kind of two different, I guess, rumor mills that are currently churning. So one is we're seeing that.

It's going to be a direct Microsoft office competitor. And, well, why does this matter? And chat, GPT, Asia, that can create spreadsheets. Well, I do think spreadsheets and presentations are two of the big kind of end deliverables that still haven't been fully cracked by generative AI tools, right? Things like personalizing research and content creation, photo, visuals, I think all of those things have. For whatever reason, spreadsheets are still kind of difficult to fully automate with AI, depending on what you're trying to do. And the same thing with presentations. I mean,

there's some AI apps that are okay at it. But for the most part, those are two deliverables that I think everyday business leaders like you and me still kind of struggle with, right, to at least get help with from AI. And then sometimes we're like, wait, I have to do this like it's, you know, 2019. And also the agent mode, right? And this is. kind of two potential different ways this could go rolled into one. But this is OpenAI's new agent mode. This could also somehow be rolled into updates to operator or maybe even the new rumored OpenAI browser.

So that could impact how we all work with ChadGBT and the web in general. So I think these are pretty sizable updates to talk about. And like we talked about, this is more than. just, you know, rumors. Normally I wouldn't do a full live stream podcast just on rumors, probably done it once in like 600 episodes. But this is more than a rumor because Open AI did confirm that they are announcing something. So our live stream audience sees this. And this is kind of a tease. And this is where it's like, okay, I like, I could see this going either way. because they teased a similar image or similar animation like this when they announced operator.

So essentially it was a cursor that moved on the screen and people are pointing out, oh, it made five stops along the way it's GPT5. Now, I don't think it is because this is a similar animation that they teased before they announced operator back in January 2025. So it just says, I'm tuning into the live stream tomorrow at 10 a.m. Pacific time. So, you know, that's a new central standard time for anyone here in Chicago area or one if you're on the East Coast. So it does seem to be something that is agentic, maybe something that's an update to Open AI's operator, which is their computer using agent. And we've seen the recent reports about Open AI releasing a dedicated browser anytime soon. So it does kind of lend itself to we might get something like that.

or it's maybe just a new function or mode inside of chat GBT that helps it create certain types of files that you would normally use Microsoft Office for. All right. So we originally shared this. This was an article from the information that we shared about in our newsletter, talking about how OpenAI is prepping a chat GBT agent to challenge Microsoft Excel. and PowerPoint. And you might be wondering,

number one, why or like, oh, that's interesting. Because if you follow AI closely, you know that Microsoft has a reported 49% stake in OpenAI. So why would OpenAI release a chat GPT agent that really does a lot of the work that someone might be paying for a Microsoft Office subscription? right if okay Microsoft Word you can you know create that type of content in canvas mode uh you know not everything but the basics right um and then you have Excel and PowerPoint and if this new

agent can really do Excel and PowerPoint with a prompt including uh transitions and visuals and images it's like okay that seems to be almost a shot at Microsoft that has reportedly invested more than $14 billion into Open AI for that reported 49% equity stake. And there's a lot of details that I don't want to get into in this podcast between the ever-evolving relationship between Open AI and Microsoft, right? We heard reportedly it was one of the reasons why that Open AI's alleged acquisition of windsurf fell through because essentially that would have given Microsoft that IP, right? Because anything that OpenAI acquires any IP that they create, essentially Microsoft gets

access to that through a certain date. There's a lot of fine print, but, you know, just for those keeping track of the score in the stance, that's the gist of it. So according to the information report, this new chat GPT agent would reportedly give chat Chdpt features that would allow users to create and edit Excel and PowerPoint files directly inside of chat. So moving beyond just the text-based tables and slides. So chat GPD actually does a pretty good job when you upload spreadsheets and it turns it into a table format instantly. I don't think a lot of people understand this by using advanced data analysis.

You can actually highlight certain cells and chat with just those cells. It's probably like when I, you know, I obviously teach tens of thousands of people, Chatsbytee companies of all sizes. And that's always like one thing, people, you know, even those that use ChachivT all the time, they look at me and they're like, wait, what? Yeah. So it actually handles spreadsheets great. And you can interact with those different cells really, really well inside Chatsubit.

It's not great at, you know, running formulas, formatting certain cells or even exporting, you know, in a certain. Excel format. So that's one thing, but also PowerPoint. That would be great. And that's one thing, you know, um, we've had plenty of, of Microsoft guests on the show. They've been an advertiser before, but one common, uh, kind of program that I've

heard that like, Hey, Microsoft co-pilot, it just doesn't work well on blank has been PowerPoint, uh, right. It's, it's been a slower rollout. And I think a lot of organizations have struggled, uh, to use this. And for whatever reason, like I said, it's almost. like creating PowerPoints with AI is so kind of like this this holy grail of like hey whatever company can do this you know they're going to take so much of the you know future um user base in AI in general right I actually think if I'm being honest like Google Gemini's canvas mode

is so freaking sweet it's so good if you could somehow like separate that out or have it just instantly export as slides. Like it would be so good, right? You know, to have it create like a, a web page or an infographic, it is mind-bogglingly good. Just FYI. But, you know, here we go. Chad GivT is going to be releasing this. So that means that users could make changes, apply formulas, and possibly even add visuals

with the new GPD40 image gen, or even transitions. with just prompts, right? Pretty sweet. It could be much easier, in theory, to create a PowerPoint in chat GPD than it is to create it in PowerPoint, maybe even if you're using Microsoft copilot. Okay. So, again, this is according to the information. The update could also add buttons for generating and editing these files,

similar to the current canvas mode inside of chat GBT, making document management a little more seamless. Also, OpenAI is reportedly working on an AI agent capable of pulling from public or corporate data, such as PDFs, databases, or internal reports to automatically generate comprehensive documents in Excel or PowerPoint formats. Adobe just introduced an entirely new way to create, bringing the power and precision of its creative suite into one conversational experience. Meet Firefly AI Assistant, now live in the Adobe Firefly app, the All In One Creative AI Studio. Powered by Adobe's creative agent, Firefly AI Assistant lets you start with your vision, just

describe what you want, and shape the outcome as it takes form with the Assistant. The Assistant orchestrates multi-step workflows, drawing on 60-plus pro-grade tools across Adobe Creative Cloud apps, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, Lightroom Express, and more to help bring your ideas to life. You can also get started with creative skills, a growing library of pre-built workflows for common creative tasks, like batch editing photos, creating mood boards, portrait retouching, and creating social variations. Every step the assistant takes is visible so you can refine, redirect, or take over at any

time. You stay in the driver's seat as the creative director. Adobe Firefly AI assistant now in public beta. See it today at Firefly. dot adobe.com. All right. That's where we kind of get into this second lane of rumors.

Like I said, we won't have to wait long, just a couple of hours. So this is from Alexi at Testing Catalog. So he just posted a great follow on Twitter, by the way. He just posted some information that he saw. So he, you know, in whatever wizardry

that he uses, always gets access to things before that they're released. A couple of people on on Twitter have cracked that code. So he kind of shared this. And let me just for our podcast audience, live stream audience, you can see it on the screen here. So he took a screenshot and wrote,

wrote a little piece about this that looks like the new agent mode is what it's being referred to as inside chat chvety. So it first asks you to select a connection type. And then it looks like there's two different options that you can choose. One is a chat option, which I assume creates a dynamic sync between your data and then whatever connection type that you sync it with. And it says sync in this case, Google drive files to chat GPT for more relevant and up-to-date answers. And then the other option is to do a deep research and agent mode. So that's where it's like two separate things there.

So deep research and agent mode. And here's what this kind of combination of deep research. of deep research in agent mode does, according to this screenshot from testing catalog. It says find, analyze and synthesize your drive files to create comprehensive reports. So again, we don't know if this agent mode and this Microsoft competitor agent are the exact same thing. Maybe they are. This could be two separate releases. Maybe we'll only get one of them in a couple of hours.

Maybe they're the same thing and we're getting them both. we'll know very soon. But regardless, this is not one of those rumors that's going to be floating around. And a couple weeks later, no, it's been announced. There is a live stream. And, you know, I'm personally, I'm pretty excited about it. Right. So I obviously use Google Gemini, Chad GPT, and Claude every single day.

But I have been using Google Gemini a lot more recently just for that canvas mode. Like I said, so much of what I end up using AI for, I ultimately need some strong visuals, right? Whether it's a full-blown PowerPoint or just having great visuals for presentations. We do a lot of training. And if I'm being honest, a lot of the times, especially between Google Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAIs, oh, three, those two are just so good, right? And I think it'll be even closer. So generally, I barely prefer Open AIs O3,

except when I'm using AI Studio, then I like Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro because you can have it take more time and think, which gives, you know, there's a thinking budget slider, which gives it better results. But Google is rolling out a new mode inside the front end of Google Gemini

that allows you to, that to happen. Regardless, right, I'm usually jumping between, you know, Open AI and Google Gemini or sorry, ChatGPT and Google Gemini, but I'm using Gemini more often than I had been previously just for its canvas mode, which is really good because I end up using this information for presentations, right? That's my usual end goal. But this could change that, right? If we get a full-blown presentation builder inside of ChatGBT, BT that has an. agent mode and deep research, it's like, wow. Okay, that would be a huge advancement and not just for, you know, hey, dorks like me, but I can't think of anyone that I've ever talked to in a

professional setting, right, that has a knowledge work job that at some point hasn't put together, you know, a PowerPoint or a Canva deck or, you know, whatever, like everyone. Everyone puts together slides and presentations and everyone works with spreadsheets. And I feel in specifically in those two cases, the majority of those people I talk to, no one likes going through or, okay, I won't say no one. The majority of people do not enjoy spending time diving into spreadsheets, right? You might get a little bit of joy when you finally figure out that formula, right? And hey, the calculation finally works.

and I'm no longer getting an error in that cell, right? But for the most part, no one actually, very few people actually enjoy spending time, you know, creating, you know, formulas and, you know, laboring over, you know, very small details inside of a spreadsheet. And I'd say the same thing for making decks, right? Sure, at the end, you might be like, all right, cool, this deck, I'm happy with it, right? But I don't know. When you're on page 12 and, you know, clicking 37 times to get the font,

and the bullet point, right? We've all been there. It stinks. Right. So I'm personally very excited for this update, whichever one of the two avenues, it may eventually go down. So a little bit more information from the testing catalog report.

So this said Open AI is reportedly developing agent mode for chat GPT, which would let users automate browser tasks. So a little bit different than the kind of Microsoft office can, you know, agent competitor, right? So this one says, open AI is reportedly developing agent mode for chat chbt, which would let users automate browser tasks and manage workflows across web sources and connected apps. The new feature combines the automation power of open AI's operator. There we go with the operator with the deep information gathering abilities of deep research, allowing chat chadbt to pull, analyze and synthesize data from sources like Google Drive in a single step. So that one's

interesting. So that might be what agent mode ultimately is. It's this combination of operator, which is open AI's computer using agent, which is pretty good. Right. I recently just did the show yesterday on Perplexity's comment, which I really, really like. That's their kind of AI native browser. And I think it at least right now is blowing the water out of other, you know, computer using agents because it works completely differently. So this agent mode might ultimately be the kind of open AI browser or it might live in an open AI browser or it might be separate, right? The open AI browser might be down the road. And this just might be an improved operator, right, an improved computer using agent that can also go into this agent mode and switch between, you know, actually seeing and visualizing websites and clicking on certain things, but also doing its deep research mode where it's just kind of.

of scanning the websites. So, but also taking in your Google Drive docs. So a little more from that report. So Open AI aims to make Chachvety a central hub for document management, data analysis, and workflow orchestration, reducing the need for traditional office software. Also, the company is layering in browser control, app connectors, and workflow automation, signaling its intent to become a foundational productivity tool for businesses and knowledge workers. So there we go. We have that combination, right? Browser control, which is operator, app connectors, right?

So that's connecting all of your data and workflow automation. So maybe that's more of this kind of Microsoft office competitor, right? being able to, you know, actually finish that workflow and create documents, right? Because people don't know, but you can create CSVs in chat, GPT, right? Whether it's copying and pacing, but you can also create, you know, PowerPoints, but it's just usually text-based, right? And then you have to, you know, paste that into chat chbt. So a lot to cover, but it comes down to what are we getting?

in a couple of hours. So we're either going to see an agent that can edit Microsoft presentations and spreadsheets, right? It's going to be able to create and edit Excel and PowerPoint, or maybe we're getting an agent that's more in line with a browser-based tool like operator. Or maybe a browser or maybe both. We'll see it's only hours away. But like I said, if you want us to cover this tomorrow, like I said, we're going to be covering it all in today's newsletter.

Just go ahead and comment Friday. Right. So I don't know. If enough people want to see more coverage on this or we could just, you know, cover it in today's newsletter. But if you want me to go into a deeper dive on this announcement on tomorrow show, let me know. Otherwise, you know, probably bring, you know, a good interview. or something like that for tomorrow show. So let's do a quick recap.

All right. So the rumors are a little bit all over the place. This could be multiple releases. But I think this agent mode is actually probably going to be all in one. That's what I think. So how is this going to impact Microsoft's Microsoft offices line of business? I would say not as much. as you might think, right?

Um, I think that, okay, let me say this. I pay $20 a month for, um, Microsoft co-pilot. Um, I also pay, I don't know how much it is like $7 a month, uh, for a Microsoft office on my Mac, right? I'm on a Mac for the most part. So would it affect that line of business?

Probably, right? For maybe people that pay, uh, for Microsoft. office on a Mac, I think that would have a pretty big impact on that lineup business. For people who are number one, heavy chat GPT users and know how to use all the features, because that's not everyone either, right? There's so many people that don't even know a tenth of what you can do inside of chat GPT. It's funny.

People that call themselves experts. All right. I'm a chat GPT expert. And, you know, most people don't know 10% of what you can actually accomplish inside chat chbt. So it might affect, you know, people such as my. who pay, you know, to have Microsoft Office on their Mac. I don't think it's going to tap into their core Windows base, right?

Because those organizations, you know, they're not paying for just, you know, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, their entire business operations run on Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365. So I don't think it's going to impact their core line of business. Would they lose some customers? Absolutely. I think what they're doing here is they're making a heavy play for kind of the tech Mac crowd, right? So that's one thing. And how will this impact your work?

Well, how will it not impact your work? Let me say that. Yes, we don't know all the details yet on this new agent mode. But, you know, the combination of using something like an operator or computer using agent with deep research, that's wild to me, right? I love deep research. The problem is, not the problem, because the power in it is that it takes a very long time, right?

But you don't always have that fine-tuned control, right? Luckily, both Google, when it does its deep research and Open AI, they kind of give you, so Google Deep Research puts together a plan first, so you can see it, and then you can click Edit Plan or Go. Chad GPT's deep research, they ask you a couple of questions before you get started. So, but then, you know, you might have to wait anywhere from five to 15 minutes. So I think with this agent mode, I think that we'll be able to do a lot more, combining that with deep research operator.

To me, I don't see how I'm going to be working without whatever this new agent mode is, right? Whether it is just a, you know, an upgraded operator, computer using agent that's intertwined with deep research and or if it's something that's creating and editing presentations and Excel files, I'm going to be using this all the time. And I'll tell you this, every big tech company copies each other. So even if you're like, oh, you know, our organization, well, we're a co-pilot team. All right. Well, if this is a new piece of technology, guess what? Microsoft co-pilot is very likely going to be rolling it out at some point. Right.

That's one of the benefits of their unique partnership with Open AIs. They get a certain level of access to Open AIs models, their IP, right? And maybe you're a Google Gemini team or, you know, your teams on Anthropics Claw, even though I don't know any teams that are. yet every other company, whenever we get in a couple of hours, they're going to be either just copy and copying and pasting, right?

And it's not just them. I mean, the same thing with meta, mistral, right? Whatever, you know, perplexity, which, you know, hats off to perplexity for actually innovating over the last couple of months. But for the most part, whatever we get in a couple of hours

from OpenAI, it's going to become the norm. Right. They have the user base. So whatever they release, there's a good chance. People are going to like it or they're going to make a couple updates and people are going to like it. And then they're going to come to expect that. Okay.

So this will impact your work greatly. Right. Will it become the new way that we work? We'll find out soon. And we'll definitely be covering this. All right. I hope this is helpful. Like I said, yeah, if you want to, if we should do a deep dive after the announcement,

let me know. Otherwise, we'll just do a quick recap in the newsletter. Hope this show was helpful. And if so, please go to your everyday AI.com. Sign up for the free daily newsletter. Thanks for tuning in. Hope to see you back tomorrow and every day for more Everyday AI. Thanks y'all.

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