Hark, a secretive AI startup founded by Brett Adcock, announced Handoff on August 6, 2026. The computer-use agent is designed to navigate the open web and perform tasks such as ordering dinner on DoorDash, booking flights on United and Delta, or messaging job candidates on LinkedIn.
The practical appeal is simple: less digital drudge work. Handoff is designed to handle repetitive clicking and navigation on your behalf. For each request, Hark says it creates a dedicated virtual computer with its own browser, file system, and terminal. That setup is intended to let the agent work across websites that do not offer direct integrations.
Account access is useful, but the details matter. Hark says users can connect existing accounts so Handoff can work with saved addresses, payment methods, and account history. The company has not yet publicly detailed which integrations are supported, how credentials or browser sessions are handled, what payment confirmations are required, or how it will address an incorrect purchase. Users should treat the preview as a test of supervised automation, not as unrestricted permission to transact.
Hark reports a strong benchmark result, with an important qualification. The company says Handoff scored 97.7 on Online-Mind2Web, or OM2W, a benchmark for web agents. Hark also supplied a 92.8 score for OpenAI's GPT 5.4. However, the available information does not independently establish that the systems used the same OM2W version, task set, prompts, tools, evaluation date, or scoring conditions. The figures should therefore be read as company-reported results, not as a fully verified ranking.
Speed and price are also Hark's claims. Hark says Handoff has per-turn model latency of 0.8 seconds. In materials shared with reporters, the company listed model-serving prices of $0.18 per million input tokens and $2.37 per million output tokens. Hark compared those figures with $5 and $30 for GPT 5.5, respectively. On those listed rates, Handoff would be substantially cheaper for token-heavy workloads. That does not by itself establish the total cost of completing a task, which can also depend on usage, retries, browsing time, and any product fees.
The pricing figures were not yet posted publicly by Hark as of August 6. Independent pricing comparisons were also not available in the materials reviewed. Readers should confirm the current rates and billing terms before relying on the claimed savings.
The training approach is partly disclosed. Hark says Handoff uses supervised fine-tuning followed by asynchronous reinforcement learning. In plain language, the system is first trained on examples and then improved through repeated feedback on how well it completes tasks. The company identifies GRPO as the reinforcement-learning method, but it has not disclosed the base model used for the current release or the precise mix of proprietary and open data. Hark says pre-training is planned for later this year.
Security remains an open question during the preview. Hark says security and privacy are a primary focus, while also describing the software as a technical preview. The company has not yet publicly explained who can access the virtual computers and files created on them. More information is expected when the product reaches the market later this summer, according to a Hark spokesperson.
The company has substantial backing. Hark announced its formation and mission on March 24, 2026. On May 21, it announced a Series A fundraise of more than $700 million at a $6 billion post-money valuation. Those resources give the company room to develop the infrastructure needed for agents that operate across the web, but they do not resolve the product's unanswered questions about safety, reliability, or accountability.
What this means for you. Handoff could eventually reclaim time spent on routine online errands, especially when a task requires several sites and no convenient app integration. The sensible way to evaluate the preview is to start with low-risk, reversible tasks. Wait for clear controls around payments, credentials, file access, and recovery before handing over sensitive accounts or important bookings.
Hark says sign-ups are open at hark.com. If you join, use the preview to judge one thing first: whether the time saved is worth the supervision the agent still requires. That is the real test of whether Handoff reduces digital maintenance rather than simply moving it to a new screen.
