Agents
Computer Use (AI)
Computer use is an AI capability that allows a model to control a computer directly — moving the cursor, clicking UI elements, typing, reading screen content, and navigating applications — without requiring an API. It enables agents to automate tasks in legacy software that exposes no machine-readable interface.
Anthropic's Claude and similar frontier models can operate computers through screenshot-and-action loops: the model sees the screen, decides the next action, executes it, and observes the result. Computer use is powerful for legacy system automation but is slower and less reliable than API-based tool use when an API exists. Security controls are essential — a computer-use agent with broad access can be misdirected by adversarial content on screen.
Related terms
- Tool Use — Tool use is the capability of an AI model to call external functions — search APIs, databases, code interpreters, file systems, web browsers — as part of generating its response.
- RPA (Robotic Process Automation) — RPA is a category of software that automates UI-driven and form-based business tasks by mimicking user actions in legacy applications.
- AI Agent — An AI agent is a software system that takes a goal, plans a sequence of steps to reach it, executes those steps using tools (APIs, databases, browsers, code), and adapts when steps fail.