Coding Agents Are Great - But General Computer Agents Handle Everything Else
Coding Is 20% of the Work
Coding agents have gotten impressive. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor - they write functions, debug errors, refactor codebases, and handle pull requests with remarkable competence. If you're a developer, they save hours every day.
But even for developers, writing code is only part of the job. The rest is email, documentation, project management, browser research, spreadsheet updates, and Slack conversations. For non-developers, code isn't part of the equation at all.
What General Computer Agents Do Differently
A general computer agent doesn't specialize in code. It operates across every application on your machine through the operating system's accessibility layer. It can draft emails, update spreadsheets, navigate web apps, manage files, and handle any task that involves interacting with software on your screen.
The scope is fundamentally broader. Instead of being excellent at one category of work, a general agent is capable across all categories. It trades depth in code for breadth across your entire digital workflow.
Complementary, Not Competing
The best setup for developers is both. Use a coding agent for code - it understands language servers, type systems, and test frameworks in ways a general agent doesn't need to. Use a general computer agent for everything else.
"Write a function that parses CSV input" goes to your coding agent. "Email the parsed results to the team and update the project board" goes to your desktop agent. Each tool handles what it's best at.
The 80% That Isn't Code
For most knowledge workers, the entirety of their work is the "everything else" category. They don't write code at all - but they still spend hours on repetitive tasks across multiple applications.
General computer agents serve this much larger audience. The market for AI that handles email, docs, and browser workflows is vastly bigger than the market for AI that writes code. Both matter, but only one covers the majority of work that people actually do.
Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.