A team at Hugging Face has released a freely available, cloud-hosted computer-using AI “agent.” But be forewarned: It’s quite sluggish and occasionally makes mistakes.

Hugging Face’s agent, called Open Computer Agent, is accessible via the web and can use a Linux virtual machine preloaded with several applications, including Firefox. Similar to OpenAI’s Operator, you can prompt Open Computer Agent to complete a task — say, “Use Google Maps to find the Hugging Face HQ in Paris” — and sit back as the agent opens the necessary programs and figures out the required steps.

Open Computer Agent can handle simple requests well enough. But more complicated ones, like searching for flights, tripped it up in TechCrunch’s testing. Open Computer Agent also often runs into CAPTCHA tests that it’s unable to solve.

You’ll also have to wait in a virtual queue to use Open Computer Agent — a queue seconds to minutes long, depending on demand.

Of course, the Hugging Face team’s goal wasn’t to build a state-of-the-art computer-using agent. Rather, they wanted to demonstrate that open AI models are becoming more capable — and cheaper to run on cloud infrastructure.

“As vision models become more capable, they become able to power complex agentic workflows,” Aymeric Roucher, a member of the agents team at Hugging Face, wrote in a post on X. “[Some of these models] support built-in grounding, i.e. [the] ability to locate any element in an image by its coordinates, [and] thus [can] click any item [in a virtual machine].”

While it’s far from perfect, agentic technology is attracting increasing investment as enterprises look to adopt it to boost productivity. According to a recent KPMG survey, 65% of companies are experimenting with AI agents. Markets and Markets projects that the AI agent segment will grow from $7.84 billion in 2025 to $52.62 billion by 2030.

The autonomous navigation market — where ships, guided by AI, steer themselves, resulting in fuel and time savings — is projected to sail past $11 billion by 2028. As a result, companies in this space are pushing on an open door. The latest is Orca AI, which closed a Series B funding round of $72.5 million led by Brighton Park Capital. Existing investors Ankona Capital and Hyperlink Ventures also participated. The London-based company has now raised over $111 million, including a $23 million funding round last year.

So what drove the new round? In a word: defense. 

Founded in 2018 by CEO Yarden Gross and CTO Dor Raviv, Orca AI applies AI-powered decision making and autonomous capabilities to ships based on a marine visual dataset of over 80 million nautical miles. By employing AI in navigation, it’s possible to significantly reduce collisions and allow crews to focus attention on other aspects of the voyage.

“The main business still is in the commercial sector. We already have collaborations and POCs,” Gross told TechCrunch. “But we see opportunities in defense coming from navies around the world around autonomy,”| he added, “where they want more cost-effective assets that can operate more efficiently with less human intervention. We’ve already signed the first contract in the defense field, deployed on a navy ship.”

Orca’s growth is also benefiting from the expansion of Starlink, which allows real-time data to be transmitted to Orca AI for mapping routes, traffic monitoring, and sharing critical information. 

“Starlink enables us to collect data at scale directly from the ship sensor. We see that as a huge opportunity,” Gross said.

The company claims that a 2024 analysis of Orca AI’s alerts system showed a 54% reduction in close encounter events leading to an average of $100,000 savings in fuel per vessel per year.

Other companies working on autonomous navigation at sea include Avikus (subsidiary of Hyundai HD) and Sea Machines.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday released new documentation detailing its new “Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees.” The rule, set to take effect on May 12, prohibits hidden fees for live events, hotels, and short-term rentals. It also bans practices such as “bait-and-switch pricing” and any actions that conceal or misrepresent total prices and fees.

In a newly published FAQ, the FTC offers a guide for these types of businesses, providing detailed information about pricing transparency.

The rule will impact businesses, including live event ticket sellers and short-term lodging providers, like hotels, motels, Airbnb, or VRBO. Third-party platforms, resellers, and travel agents are also covered by the new regulation. (Airbnb already updated its service in advance of this new regulation to show users the total cost of their stay upfront.)

According to the FTC:

• Live event tickets include those for concerts, sporting events, music, theater, and other live performances that audiences watch as they occur, but not pre-recorded audio or visual performances.
• The total price must include all known charges and fees.  
• Sites must disclose the total price upfront in ads and other offers for live-event tickets or short-term lodging.  
• The total price must also be more prominently displayed than any other pricing information.  
• There should be no misrepresentation about fees and charges.
• Sites should provide truthful information about fees, including refund policies.  
• Sites should avoid vague terms like “convenience fees,” “service fees,” or “processing fees.” 
• Dynamic pricing strategies are still allowed as long as the pricing information isn’t misleading.

Also included in the FTC’s new FAQ are the types of fees that can be excluded, such as taxes or government fees, shipping charges, and charges for optional goods or services people may select to buy as part of the same transaction. (Note that handling charges aren’t on this list.) 

However, the FTC notes that businesses must disclose that it has excluded charges from the total price before asking for payment. For example, if a business excludes shipping charges from the advertised price, it’s required to clearly state the amount and purpose of those charges.

The FTC first passed the rule in December 2024, a landmark regulation that marked a significant win for consumers who have been frustrated for years about hidden fees.