Computer use agent alternative for production
The computer-use agent alternative built for production
Computer-use agents read the screen, reason, and click pixels in a loop — brilliant for exploration, too slow, costly, and nondeterministic to trust in production. Zatanna runs the same workflow one layer below the UI: it reverse-engineers the network calls behind any portal and serves one stable endpoint your agents call directly.
Stop driving the screen. Call the request underneath.
A computer-use agent watches a screen
Screenshot, reason, click a pixel — every step. Encoding a frame through a vision model on each loop makes it slow and expensive, and small errors compound over long tasks until the workflow drifts off course.
Zatanna talks to the system directly
We observe the workflow once, reconstruct the underlying HTTP requests — auth, sessions, sequencing — and host them as one clean endpoint. No pixels, no virtual desktop, no browser.
Built to survive production
Deterministic responses on every call, managed auth and MFA, anti-bot and TLS hardening, plus portal-change detection that repairs the integration automatically.
Computer use agents vs. Zatanna
| Criterion | Computer use agents | Zatanna |
|---|---|---|
| Execution model | Screenshot → reason → click loop over raw pixels | Direct request calls at the network layer |
| Execution speed | ~8–15s per step; minutes for a multi-step task | 200–500ms per workflow — no vision loop |
| Determinism | Nondeterministic — self-corrects, can vary run to run | Same structured result on every call |
| Reliability at length | Errors compound over steps; long workflows fail unattended | Stable at the request layer, independent of the UI |
| Cost | ~$2–3+ per 10-min task in vision tokens (~100× traditional automation) | A fraction of a cent per request |
| Auth & sensitive actions | Pauses for human confirmation on logins and CAPTCHAs | Managed auth, MFA, and session refresh underneath |
| Security surface | Whole screen is readable; exposed to prompt injection | Scoped endpoint — no screen, no ambient access |
| Output | Pixels and screenshots you interpret | Clean, structured API responses |
| Agent ergonomics | Your agent supervises a virtual desktop | Your agent calls one stable endpoint |
Bring one blocked workflow. We'll turn it into a production API.
Common questions
A computer-use agent (OpenAI Operator / ChatGPT Agent, Anthropic Claude Computer Use, Google Project Mariner) is an AI model that operates software through its human interface — reading screenshots and driving a virtual mouse and keyboard in a loop, instead of calling an API.
For exploration and one-off tasks, they're powerful. For a workflow that runs in production, no — screenshot-driving is slow, costly, and nondeterministic. Zatanna runs the same workflow at the request layer: milliseconds instead of seconds, and the same result every time.
Cost and reliability. A 10-minute session burns dollars in vision tokens — roughly 100× traditional automation — each step adds seconds of latency, and errors compound over long tasks, so the best systems still complete only about 20% of long-horizon workflows unattended. They also pause for human confirmation on logins and sensitive actions, which breaks unattended throughput.
When you're exploring, prototyping, or hitting genuinely uncooperative software with no stable request flow and truly one-off, low-volume interactions. As soon as a workflow becomes production infrastructure, move it to a request-layer endpoint.
For accessing third-party portals — logging in, submitting forms, pulling data — yes, and deterministically. We reconstruct the underlying requests and expose one endpoint. We don't drive arbitrary desktop apps; we make portal workflows callable in production.