{"id":88012,"title":"Asteroid: Browser Agents with Human Oversight","tagline":"Browser workflow automation for regulated industries","body":"**Asteroid makes browser automation seamless for regulated industries.** Not only developers but also non-technical teams can **build and run our browser agents with Asteroid**, turning 45-minute manual tasks into 2-minute automated processes.\n\nOur browser agents can navigate legacy portals, fill out forms, and extract data—all without brittle scripts, high costs, or maintenance headaches.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=88012\u0026key=user_uploads/1651915/50a0915f-b720-4fff-923b-0b84e6017098)\n\n### **The Problem**\n\nTraditional automation tools like RPA are too expensive for non-enterprise customers, **costing $10,000 per automation**. Meanwhile, scaleups especially in high-risk industries like insurance or healthcare lack the resources to maintain Selenium or Playwright scripts, as these frequently break due to UI changes and the automations need to be extremely reliable.\n\n### **The Solution**\n\nBrowser agents bridge this gap—offering the flexibility of scripting with the reliability of RPA. With 2025’s computer use models, **web automation is now 100x cheaper and more robust, unlocking thousands of new use cases.**\n\n### **How It Works**\n\n**Asteroid transforms any browser task into an agentic workflow.** Simply show Asteroid what to do—via a screen recording, SOP, or written instructions—and get an agentic workflow. You can then call it through our web UI or API.\n\nBehind the scenes, Asteroid spins up a secure, headless browser, handles authentication, executes workflows, and seamlessly integrates human review when needed—all without burdening your developers. We ensure the agent improves over time.\\\n🔗 [Watch Asteroid in action](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26uksP36xB4)\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=88012\u0026key=user_uploads/1651915/fa0c7345-c244-4270-8c56-c905072f93ea)\n\n### **Highlighted Features**\n\n🔹 **API-First Automation** – Trigger a browser agent in a web UI or with a single API call—no need for complex scripts or RPA setups.\\\n🔹 **Human-in-the-Loop** – Automate only where it’s safe, with built-in escalation for manual review when needed.\\\n🔹 **Intelligent Guardrails** – Set rules like “Never click this button” or “Ask before submitting” to prevent errors.\\\n🔹 **Continuous Learning** – Asteroid evaluates every execution, adapting to website changes and improving over time using evaluations and backtesting.\n\n### **How We Got Here**\n\nWe’re both AI engineers who had to solve the same problem independently. Joe built AI systems that stopped $100M+ in fraud annually. David developed fraud investigation agents for fintechs.\n\nAfter years of building mission-critical automation, we learned that automation only works with intelligent guardrails, human oversight, and continuous learning.\n\nWe first built Asteroid as a developer tool for safe AI deployment—offering guardrails, human-in-the-loop workflows, and continuous evaluations. But we quickly realized:\n\n\\*\\*Browser agents need these safeguards even more.\\*\\*\\\n✅ **Guardrails** – \"Don’t click on this.\"\\\n✅ **Human oversight** – \"Ping me before you submit.\"\\\n✅ **Continuous learning** – \"The website changed—adapt.\"\n\nInstead of just developer tools, we’ve shifted to building browser agents with safety and reliability baked in!\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=88012\u0026key=user_uploads/1651915/e9051949-8032-4fc5-951d-1fb8361ba3e1)\n\n### **Real-World Use Cases**\n\nWe’re working with customers to automate high-value workflows like:\n\n🔹 **Insurance Portal Automation** – Retrieve broker quotes across insurer portals—without manual input.\\\n🔹 **Supply Chain Scheduling** – Log into carrier platforms, retrieve GPS data, and schedule deliveries—seamlessly.\\\n🔹 **Expense Management** – Pull PDF bills from utility portals for expense tracking—without APIs.\n\n### **Who is Asteroid for?**\n\n🔹**Businesses with Heavy Manual Browser Workflows** – Automate large-scale data entry, form submissions, and repetitive portal interactions.\\\n🔹**Regulated Businesses using Legacy Systems** – Streamline automation for industries like insurance, healthcare and supply chain.\\\n🔹**AI Agent Startups** – Enable AI agents to reliably interact with legacy portals and automate browser tasks.\n\n### **Get Started**\n\n**Have a repetitive workflow you'd love to automate?** Let’s explore how Asteroid can help!\\\n🔹 [Schedule a demo](https://calendly.com/founders-asteroid-hhaf/30min?month=2025-02) to discuss your use case!\\\n🔹[Try our default agents](https://platform.asteroid.ai/) and see browser automation in action!","slug":"MtY-asteroid-browser-agents-with-human-oversight","created_at":"2025-02-25T16:20:12.618Z","updated_at":"2026-05-24T13:05:03.807Z","total_vote_count":19,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/MtY-asteroid-browser-agents-with-human-oversight","share_image_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/media/?type=post\u0026id=88012\u0026key=user_uploads/1651915/fa0c7345-c244-4270-8c56-c905072f93ea","company":{"id":30259,"name":"Asteroid","slug":"asteroid","url":"https://asteroid.ai","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/4598dd293d773fa0a9a1c72940f2f2e3153dda35.png","batch":"Winter 2025","industry":"B2B","tags":["Artificial Intelligence","Robotic Process Automation","Health Tech","B2B","Automation"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/30259"}}