Two years ago, OpenAI launched the chatbot craze with the release of ChatGPT. Now it hopes to spark interest in a new wave of A.I. technology.

On Thursday, OpenAI unveiled a tool called Operator that can go out onto the internet and perform tasks autonomously, like shopping for groceries or booking a restaurant reservation.

“It can navigate websites and take actions on websites, much like you and I do, ” said OpenAI product and engineering lead Yash Kumar in an interview.

Artificial intelligence researchers call this kind of technology an A.I. agent. While chatbots can answer questions, write poems and generate images, agents can use other software on the internet.

During a briefing with The New York Times, Mr. Kumar showed how the system could book a San Francisco restaurant reservation through the OpenTable website and buy a list of groceries through Instacart. Operator looks and behaves much like ChatGPT and other chatbots. The user types a request into a small window. Then the system responds as best it can.

The user can watch as the tool opens a web browser and visits particular sites. Operator may make mistakes. But in some cases, it can correct these mistakes. During the demonstration for The Times, the system mistakenly assumed that Mr. Kumar was in Iowa, before correctly finding a restaurant in San Francisco.