At OpenAI's Dev Day event on Tuesday, the company unveiled Dots, a new personal agentic assistant driven by GPT-6 Astra. According to the company, Dots are "remarkably capable, always-on agents built to handle everything."

Different from Codex or ChatGPT, Dots are designed to function without being tied to any particular hardware or interface, continuously pursuing user-defined goals in the background with minimal supervision. "Today, you can start with your primary dot, give it a name, and make it your own," OpenAI stated in an announcement post. "Over time, we envision teams of Dots working together on your behalf."

Starting Tuesday, Dots will be offered in ChatGPT for Pro and Business Premium users in eligible markets. Users can launch Dots from either Codex or ChatGPT. In its announcement, OpenAI outlined numerous ways Dots could be utilized. In one example, a software developer assigns a dedicated dot to track customer feedback, rolling out bug fixes and requested features as needed. In another, a scientist uses a dot to rerun analysis and investigate unexpected results as experimental data comes in. Users can send messages to Dots through Slack, Teams and other organizational platforms, with text message support arriving soon.

OpenAI also envisions "specialist Dots" that handle specific responsibilities. Individual Dots can be equipped with specific identities, credentials and tools through existing systems. OpenAI is already collaborating with Microsoft to integrate into the company's Agent 365 security controls.

A great deal of this functionality was already achievable through Codex and similar agentic harnesses — but Dots consolidates those features into a new package with an emphasis on independent agentic actions. The branding also introduces a bubbly, cartoonish persona, comparable to Meta's recently released Muse agent. The Dots resemble…well, dots. These small floating cartoons represent a makeover for OpenAI's software, and are the latest instance of a company attempting to make AI more relatable.