Hugging Face released a cloud-hosted AI “agent” that is available for free. But be warned: It can be quite slow and make mistakes.
The Hugging Face agent, called Open Computer Agentis accessible via the internet and can use a Linux Virtual Machine preloaded with several apps, including Firefox. OpenAI’s Operator is similar to Open Computer Agent. You can ask it to perform a task, such as “Use Google Maps in order to locate the Hugging Face HQ office in Paris”and then sit back and relax while the agent opens all the necessary programs and completes the required steps. Open Computer Agent is able to handle simple requests. TechCrunch’s tests found that more complex requests, such as searching for flights, were too difficult. Open Computer Agent is also unable to solve CAPTCHA tests.
To use Open Computer Agent, you’ll have to wait for a virtual line that can be seconds or minutes long depending on demand.
Computer Use in Smolagents is now available!
As vision models improve, they can power more complex agentic workflows. Qwen-VL model support built-in groundeding, i.e. Ability to locate any element within an image using its coordinates. pic.twitter.com/mI8MuWZkIS
— m_ric (@AymericRoucher) May 6, 2025
The Hugging Face team didn’t set out to create a computer-using agent that was state-of-the art. They wanted to show that open AI models were becoming more capable and cheaper to run in cloud infrastructure.
As vision models become more powerful, they can power complex agentic workflows, Aymeric Roucher of Hugging Face’s agents team, said. In a poston X, a writer wrote: “[Some of these models] support built-in grounding, i.e. [the] Ability to locate any element within an image using its coordinates [and] therefore [can] [in a virtual machine]click any item. According to a KPMG survey65% of companies have been experimenting with AI agents. Markets and markets projects the AI agent segment to grow from $7.84 Billion in 2025 up to $52.62 Billion by 2030.
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Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch’s AI Editor. His writings have appeared in VentureBeat, Digital Trends and a variety of gadget blogs, including Android Police and Android Authority. He lives in Manhattan, with his music therapist partner.
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