How Computer Use Agents Work

Computer Use Agents (CUAs) are AI systems that perceive a computer's graphical interface via screenshots, reason using vision-language models, and act through simulated mouse/keyboard input in a continuous feedback loop. Major implementations include Anthropic Computer Use (Claude 3.5 Sonnet), OpenAI Operator (GPT-4o), Google Project Mariner (Gemini 2.0 Flash), and Microsoft OmniParser + UFO, each with distinct architectures. Unlike traditional RPA which relies on brittle UI selectors, CUAs are adaptive and goal-based but face limitations in speed, cost, and task success rates (~70-80%).