How to Use ChatGPT Agent to Make Money in Business

TL;DR

ChatGPT agent takes control of a browser and performs multi-step business tasks on your behalf for $20 a month, and several agents can run at the same time in separate tabs. Demonstrated uses include finding 20 plumbers in Nashville that already have websites, exporting contact info to a Google Sheet, competitor research, and writing hyper-personalized cold emails to dentists in Austin. OpenAI combined operator's agentic features with deep research into one tool.

Transcript

This is absolutely incredible. 20 bucks a month and you can have a team of PhD employees at your fingertips. Keep in mind I have six agents running at the same time right now. Each agent is taking the place of multiple employees. I'm going to start so many businesses. Not only is it making this pitch deck, it's also incorporating things that it kno... Read More

Key Insights

• ChatGPT agent can take control of your browser and perform tasks on your behalf, including finding plumbers in Nashville without websites, grabbing contact info, scraping competitor pricing pages, and building pitch decks, at a cost of $20 a month.
• Running multiple agents concurrently is possible by opening a new tab per task. The presenter ran a Nashville plumber lead task, a competitor research task, a dentist cold email task, a Google Trends task, and a calendar briefing task at once, reaching six agents.
• OpenAI has said ChatGPT agent combines all of the agentic features of operator with all of the deep research features of deep research into one product, and it runs much faster than operator did just a few months earlier.
• The correct prospect for a website-building offer is a business owner who already has a website, not one without. Owners without websites get pitched daily and do not value websites, so they are not customers, while existing site owners have proven they care.
• Telling the agent to move fast actually makes it move faster, according to the presenter, and the same trick applies in voice mode. It is one of the specific prompt instructions he learned while using operator and ChatGPT.
• Giving reference data inside a prompt improves results. Rather than asking for ten affordable business ideas outright, list four examples such as dog walking, car detailing, landscaping, and a farmers market stand, and the model returns ten more in that direction.
• Naming a specific source overcomes the assumption that the model will think of it on its own. Manta holds tens of millions of business listings and ChatGPT has likely scraped it, but it will not necessarily use it unless you ask.
• Competitive research prompts work even without owning a business. The presenter asked for his five biggest competitors based on publicly available traffic data plus a report on their strengths, products, and SEO, and notes you can sell that research to others.
• Agent mode can log into your accounts when you take over the browser, which triggers a warning that the browser session will be saved and screenshots will not be taken because it may put your data at risk. The presenter used it to access his calendar.
• The cold email output pulled deeply personal details, including a dentist's FAGD credential earned over 500 plus hours of study, a Penn State business degree, NYU dental school, a Montefiore residency, an implant fellowship, a 2020 move to Austin, and Spartan race competing.

Questions & Answers

Q: What is ChatGPT agent and what can it do?

ChatGPT agent is a feature from OpenAI that gives ChatGPT the ability to take control of your browser and perform tasks on your behalf. Examples shown include finding every plumber in Nashville without a website and writing personalized emails to sell them sites, scraping a competitor's pricing pages and building a pitch deck on how to beat them, and finding 20 dentists in Austin, researching their services, writing custom cold emails, and exporting everything to a CSV with follow-up templates. OpenAI has said it combines the agentic features of operator with the deep research features of deep research.

Q: How much does ChatGPT agent cost?

The presenter states the cost as 20 bucks a month, describing it as having a team of PhD employees at your fingertips for that price. He emphasizes the value by pointing out that he had six agents running at the same time, with each agent taking the place of multiple employees. He compares this to yesterday's requirement of hiring a virtual assistant, a data scraper, a copywriter, an intern, and maybe a research assistant to accomplish the same work he demonstrates in the video.

Q: How do you turn on agent mode in ChatGPT?

You click the tools button inside ChatGPT and then click agent mode. From there you type your instruction, such as asking it to find a list of 20 plumbers in Nashville that have a website, find as much contact info of the owners as possible including email and ideally a cell phone number, and put all of that data into a Google Sheet. The presenter also adds the instruction to move fast, which he says makes the agent actually work faster.

Q: Can you run multiple ChatGPT agents at the same time?

Yes. The presenter opens a new tab while one task is still running and starts another, then repeats. He runs a Nashville plumber lead generation task, a Texas Snacks competitor research task, an Austin dentist cold email task, a Google Trends business idea ranking task, and a calendar briefing task simultaneously, stating he has five running concurrently and elsewhere that he has six agents running at the same time. Each agent, in his framing, takes the place of multiple employees.

Q: Why should you target businesses that already have a website instead of those without one?

Business owners without a website get pitched websites all day, every day, and still do not have one, which proves they do not value a website, so they are not your customer. Owners who already have a site have demonstrated they value one, and statistically it is probably ugly, so you do not even need to look at it before making an offer. The presenter compares this to his friend's pressure washing business, which gets customers by throwing flyers onto the cleanest driveways rather than the dirtiest ones, because those homeowners are the ones who value a clean driveway.

Q: How do you write better prompts for ChatGPT agent?

Give it reference data and be specific rather than assuming ChatGPT knows what you know or what you want. The presenter names Manta explicitly as a cross reference source because it has tens of millions of business listings and ChatGPT has surely scraped it, but that does not mean it will think to use it in the moment. He also recommends including examples: instead of asking for ten affordable and approachable business ideas, list four such as dog walking, car detailing, landscaping, and a farmers market stand, and it will return ten more along those lines.

Q: What did the agent produce for the dentist cold email task?

The presenter asked for a list of five dentists in Austin, owners only, with five cold emails hyper-personalized to each, described as almost creepily stalkerish personalized, offering SEO services exclusively for Austin dentists and requesting a call. The output surfaced details like one dentist running, lifting weights, paddle boarding, and competing in Spartan races, and another hanging out with a boxer dog named Yuri, paddle boarding on Lake Austin, practicing kundalini yoga, and playing pickleball. One email cites that fewer than 6% of dentists hold the FAGD and that the recipient earned his after 500 plus hours of study.

Q: How can you use ChatGPT agent for competitor research?

The presenter demonstrates on his own e-commerce business, Texas Snacks, which resells items bought from the gas station chain Buc-ee's and now faces many clones and competitors. He asks the agent to find his five biggest competitors based on publicly available traffic data and write a report on what they do very well, what products seem to sell well, how their SEO looks, and what he can learn from them. He notes you do not need to own a business to use this prompt: you can run it on other companies and then sell them the research, or help them implement the findings as a consultant or agency owner.

Q: What are the risks of letting ChatGPT agent log into your accounts?

When the agent needs to log into an account, it hands control back and asks you to take over to log in with your credentials, in this case a Google account. The interface warns that you are about to control ChatGPT's browser, that it will not take screenshots, that your browser session will be saved, and that this may put your data at risk. The presenter proceeds anyway, calling himself a risky guy, and the agent then accesses his calendar to check next week's meetings, research each client's recent news, and create briefing docs with talking points.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• ChatGPT agent is accessed through the tools button by selecting agent mode, after which it can take over your browser and carry out tasks such as searching directories, gathering contact information, and building spreadsheets. The presenter had six agents running at the same time, each replacing the work of multiple employees, for a subscription cost of $20 a month.

• The website-selling method inverts the usual approach: instead of hunting for business owners with no website, target owners who already have one, because those owners have demonstrated they value having a website. Owners without one are pitched constantly and never buy, the same way a pressure washing business gets customers from clean driveways rather than dirty ones.

• Prompting quality decides output quality. The presenter tells the agent to move fast, names specific sources like the Manta directory with its tens of millions of business listings, and supplies reference examples inside the prompt, because uploading reference data steers the model toward the kind of answer you actually want.