OpenWorker

OpenWorker is a free, open-source desktop app by Andrew Ng that acts as a coworker instead of a chatbot. You ask for a finished result, like a drafted document or a triaged inbox, and it works across your files, Slack, email, and calendar until the job is done. There is no OpenWorker inference service: you paste in your own AI model key or run fully local with Ollama, so your data leaves your machine only through providers you choose. It is in open beta, with downloads for Mac and Windows.

Key Features

1. Outcome-first tasks

You ask for a finished result, such as a customer brief or a rearranged calendar, and OpenWorker breaks it into steps and delivers the artifact.

2. 25+ tool integrations

It connects to Slack, Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Notion, HubSpot, GitHub, Jira, Linear, Asana, and Dropbox, and any MCP tool can be added.

3. Bring your own model

Use OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or open-weight providers, or run fully local through Ollama with no key at all.

4. Approval before consequential actions

Before sending a message, changing your calendar, writing a file, or running a shell command, it stops and asks.

5. Real deliverables

It produces documents, spreadsheets, reports, web pages, and message drafts as finished artifacts, not to-do lists.

6. Security coworkers

Specialist Security coworkers scan your code and supply chain for real risk and can open fix-ready pull requests.

7. Scheduled automations

You can set up scheduled automations, such as a daily news summary that arrives each morning without you asking for it.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Who made OpenWorker?

OpenWorker was released by Andrew Ng in late July 2026 and is built on aisuite, his provider-agnostic LLM library. Its source code is MIT-licensed and published on GitHub.

Does OpenWorker charge a subscription?

No. OpenWorker is 100 percent open source with no inference service of its own. Your only cost is whatever your chosen AI provider bills, or nothing at all if you run a local model through Ollama.

How is OpenWorker different from ChatGPT or Claude?

Chatbots return replies, while OpenWorker returns finished work: a document on disk, a sent Slack reply, a rearranged calendar. It also keeps your agent loop, keys, and tokens on your own machine by default.

Which platforms does OpenWorker support?

It ships for macOS 13 and later on Apple Silicon, and for Windows 10 and 11. On Windows, SmartScreen may warn on first run because the build is not signed yet.

Conclusion

OpenWorker suits people who want AI that finishes office work, not just answers questions. The local-first design and approval step keep sensitive work under your control. Bring a model key or Ollama, connect your tools, and let it handle repetitive tasks while you stay in charge. Model costs stay in your hands, since OpenWorker never marks up your provider bill.