OpenAI Just Launched AgentKit, Here It Is in a Nutshell

AgentKit is OpenAI's attempt to make AI agents so simple that even your tech-phobic parent could build one. Whether that's revolutionary or just repackaged workflow automation with better marketing depends on how charitable you're feeling.

What is it?

The beginning of gen AI's plot for world dominance. Just kidding, AgentKit is OpenAI's version of, that's right, a suite of AI agent tools and interfaces.

Back-up, have I heard of AI agents???

Probably, they came into prominence about a year ago with the promise of replacing actual real people in roles; i.e. you could create a "customer service agent" or a "payroll agent" which was basically a widget that used AI to retrieve, decide, and act on information it was given. The reality was they weren't easy to configure and to keep it short everyone still has their job today.

So OpenAI finally decided to launch their own?

Yes, but they've made configuring and setup of an agent a lot simpler so that even a pleb like you or me can create one. Previously, some tech skills were needed, plus you still had to create a trigger (like an email received or form submitted) to plug into an agent, and configure some type of output (onto Word, google sheets). AgentKit makes these connections a lot easier and simpler to do now.

Wow, OpenAI really are trailblazers!

Not really, a company called n8n started doing these workflow automations back in 2019. There's also Zapier, Make…

OK, so am I supposed to get excited or not?

Yes and No. They have made creating these agents a lot easier, the best example being you could create a customer service chatbot (ChatKit) for your company's website branded the way you like and doing the things you need it to do with ChatGPT as the engine and without any technical skills. But the trade-off is in customisation, think of AgentKit IKEA, everything is flat-packed and assembly is allegedly simple. The other platforms are your customised carpenter, more skill required but also more ways to cock up.

Does that mean OpenAI is trying to "Apple-fy" my world?

Precisely. OpenAI is betting you'd rather outsource decisions than make them yourself. AgentKit is the gateway: build one chatbot, realize it works, add another for expenses, and suddenly you're three subscriptions deep with your entire workflow hostage to their infrastructure. At DevDay 2025 they doubled down — apps you control from ChatGPT prompts, Spotify playlists, calendar management, the works. It's the classic play: make integration so seamless that leaving becomes unthinkable. Apple mastered this with iMessage. OpenAI is running the same playbook with your business processes.

OK wrap this up, I have an agent to build!

Hold on, there are caveats. It's free now (while you have an OpenAI API account), but pricing remains conspicuously unannounced. And whatever you build lives exclusively on OpenAI's infrastructure — convenient until it isn't.