I Gave an AI Agent Control of My Computer — Here Is What Happened Next

As a 90s kid, I grew up watching The Jetsons and remember being fascinated by the idea of having a robot who is always there for you. After all, who doesn’t remember Rosey the Robot zipping around the Jetsons’ home, tidying up, helping the family and offering the occasional opinion. She didn’t wait for George to search a manual or open the right app. She noticed what needed doing and got on with it.

Now, Rosey wasn’t really an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude, but she did show us how wonderful it can be to have a digital helper who could act on your behalf.

Fast forward to 2026, here I am with my own Rosey - an AI agent running locally on my laptop. And this is all thanks to the new superchip in the market, Nvidia’s RTX Spark. I’ve been playing around with my own Hermes Agent on an Nvidia RTX Spark-powered device and the experience has been a treat so far. Let me take it from the top.

My experience with Hermes AI agent

There is something funny about setting up an AI assistant. You know it’s just software but you still find yourself greeting it. “Hi, Hermes,” I said the moment I finished installing the AI agent on my device and told it to call me Divyanshi. I honestly was waiting for Hermes to say something 'futuristic’ but it just replied with a 'Good to meet you’ and asked me about what accent colour I preferred in the app. Then, I decided it was time to put the agent to work.

Starting off with something basic, I told it to install Chrome. And it did, but after running into a small issue. Now I don’t want you to bore you with the details but Windows did flag a problem with the downloaded installer. When Hermes came back to me with this issue, I said “Just install it,”, deliberately asking it to bypass the check.

However, the AI agent didn't simply brush past the warning. It tried again, went to Google's own download and checked that the installer came from Google before proceeding.

And to me, this was really interesting. Hermes had encountered a problem, recognised that something needed attention and tried another approach instead of pretending nothing had happened. Of course, this doesn't mean an AI agent should be allowed to override security warnings without supervision. In fact, this is precisely why such systems need appropriate safeguards. But in this instance, watching Hermes work through the problem gave me a glimpse of what having a personal AI assistant could look like.

I didn’t have to be the one searching for the correct website, downloading the installer and clicking through the setup screens. I had to simply describe the outcome I wanted and let the agent attempt to achieve it.

And that got me thinking:

'I don't want another chatbot. I want an assistant.’

Think about how most of us use AI today. We open ChatGPT or any other AI chatbot, ask a question and receive an answer. Now this could be asking the agent for help with installing a new software, explaining a complicated topic or helping in drafting an email. All of this can save us time, but we are usually responsible for taking that response and doing something with it.

But with an AI agent, everything changes.

Instead of simply telling you how to complete a task, an agent can use available tools to carry out the task itself. With the right permissions, of course. It can interpret an instruction, break it down into steps, interact with compatible applications and respond to problems along the way.

That said, we're not quite at the stage where you can hand over your entire workload and just walk away. Agents can misunderstand instructions, make mistakes or struggle with applications that they cannot operate reliably. Some tasks may also take longer than completing them manually.

But I think the more interesting question is not whether an AI agent can do everything a person can. It's whether it can take care of enough repetitive work to make our lives easier.

For me, even the possibility of spending less time on routine computer tasks is appealing. And I doubt I'm alone.

Why run an AI agent locally?

This brings us to an important part of my experience: Hermes was running on a system powered by Nvidia RTX Spark. Now a question that many of you might think about here is why does running an AI agent on your own machine matter when you can already access powerful AI services online? The first reason is control over your own data.

Our computers hold everything from personal photographs and financial documents to unpublished work and confidential business files. With a compatible model running locally, information can be processed on the device instead of being sent to a remote service.

Local AI can also work without a continuous internet connection for supported tasks, once the necessary software and models are installed. It may reduce dependence on cloud services that charge for API usage, although hardware, electricity and setup costs still apply.

There's an important caveat, though: running an agent locally doesn't automatically guarantee privacy. Depending on its configuration, an agent may still connect to external services or send information elsewhere.

The other advantage is experimentation. Running AI on your own machine gives you more freedom to explore models and workflows without relying entirely on a cloud provider.

This is where NVIDIA RTX Spark comes in. Unlike NVIDIA's DGX Spark developer desktop, RTX Spark brings the same GB10 Grace Blackwell CPU-GPU platform to Windows 11 devices, including compact desktops and slim laptops. This makes local AI computing more accessible in familiar PC form factors.

The GB10 combines an Arm-based Grace CPU with a Blackwell GPU and supports up to 128GB of unified memory, depending on the device configuration. The CPU and GPU share a memory pool, allowing compatible AI models and workloads to use that memory rather than being restricted to the smaller, separate memory pools found in many conventional PCs.

Now even though the hardware provides the computing resources, it doesn't determine how capable or trustworthy an agent will be. That depends on the model, its tools and the permissions it receives.

The question of trust

Giving an AI agent the ability to act on your computer also raises a bigger question: how much control should it have?

A chatbot giving you an incorrect answer is one thing. An agent with permission to install software, move files or change system settings can cause real problems if it gets something wrong.

My Chrome installation experience is a simple example here. I told Hermes to proceed even after Windows flagged a problem. But, the agent went to Google's official download page and checked the installer source before continuing. That was a more sensible approach than simply ignoring the warning.

So, can you blindly trust an AI agent with your computer? Probably not. But that doesn't mean you should dismiss the technology altogether. My experience with Hermes showed me that an AI agent can take action, work through problems and get things done. The important part is knowing when to let it work and when to step in.

Is this the future of personal computing?

Personally, I don't think everyone will just stop using conventional applications. Nor does it mean every computer user needs a dedicated AI system sitting on their desk. But it does make me think about how our expectations from our PCs could change.

For years, we've learnt to adapt ourselves to computers. We memorise keyboard shortcuts, navigate menus, understand software interfaces and figure out how to make different applications work together.

AI agents offer the possibility of reversing some of that relationship. Instead of learning every step involved in a task, we could just describe the outcome we want and let the computer work out how to achieve it.

That could be useful for people who aren't comfortable navigating complicated software. It could also help experienced users reduce the time they spend on repetitive work.

For journalists, for instance, an agent that can reliably search through documents or help identify relevant information in long recordings could become a useful addition to an existing workflow. For office workers, it might help with routine administrative tasks. For developers and enthusiasts, it could offer a way to build more personalised computing experiences.

I've explored some of these possibilities in greater detail in my hands-on review of NVIDIA RTX Spark. Read more on that by clicking here.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that all these are mere possibilities rather than guarantees. The quality of the results, the reliability of the agent and the safeguards built into the software will determine how useful these systems become.

So, do I finally have my own Rosey?

Well, she doesn't have a metal body, she can't fetch me a cup of tea, and she isn't going to tell George Jetson (my husband) what to do. But, she can organise my files, help me work with creative software and carry out instructions that would otherwise require me to sit through a series of manual steps.

And for now, that is enough.