Shield helps technicians hand off legacy portal work with OpenAI

Shield, an outsourced IT services provider for small and medium-sized businesses, built Forge, an AI operating system that helps IT providers complete support tasks end to end. Many legacy portals technicians use daily lack APIs, which previously created bottlenecks when AI agents got stuck and customers had to wait for a human. Shield tried earlier computer-use models but found them unreliable and slow. With OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, Forge's computer-use agents can now navigate supported browser interfaces, log into legacy websites, and complete supported tasks, while technicians decide which actions the agent can take autonomously and which require review or approval. According to Mayank Jain, Head of Technology at Shield, GPT-6 Astra was 35-40% faster on average than legacy models for computer-use tasks, with higher customer satisfaction on AI-assisted tickets, faster execution, fewer failures and timeouts, and less time spent writing instructions or helping agents through tasks. The browser workflows are live with thousands of runs each month across Shield's IT providers. Phone calls, on-site work and remote-desktop tasks still require human involvement, and Shield is testing remote-desktop workflows for more complex desktop actions. Jain says, "With GPT-6 Astra, Forge is now truly an extension of our human technicians."

(Source：OpenAI)