Research the web visually by browsing pages
From the linked report, the commenter says they used ChatGPT Agent Mode as a visual browser rather than a text crawler. It spun up a virtual computer, opened sites in a browser, looked at the rendered pages the way a person would, and clicked through live buttons and interfaces; they used it to search many online stores for a specific item and check whether each would ship to their country. They say this worked much better on dynamic interfaces than text-based crawling and let the agent visit hundreds of stores to find what they considered the best option.
- Agent or tool
- ChatGPT Agent
- Topic
- Research & Data
- Reported on
- Added
- 2026-10-15
Why it matters
Research is mostly gathering, cleaning and comparing. Handing that groundwork to an agent leaves the person with the part that needs judgment: deciding what the findings mean. It is one of 67 sightings filed under Research & Data on Agent Sightings (number 17 by interest), and one of 48 involving ChatGPT Agent.
How you could try it
Here is a reusable prompt, written by us in our own words, that captures the task. Paste it into ChatGPT Agent or any similar agent and adjust the details to your situation.
Research brief: research the web visually by browsing pages. Prefer primary sources, include links and confidence notes, and do not contact anyone.
Tip: Start small: run it once on a low-stakes example, read what the agent did, and only then let it run on real work.
Source
Read the original first-hand account on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1usngow/is_openai_silently_removing_a…. Our summary is a paraphrase; details are in the source.