Overview
- OpenAI announced Dots on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, describing them as long‑running AI agents that each run on a dedicated cloud computer with a browser and continue work across sessions.
- Dots can connect to more than 4,000 plugins and linked apps to perform recurring tasks, delegate work to subagents, proactively search for new information, and be contacted through ChatGPT, Slack, or Microsoft Teams.
- The initial rollout gives one Dot to eligible ChatGPT Pro and Business Premium users with regional exclusions and offers Enterprise, Education, and Healthcare customers an admin‑activated beta.
- OpenAI built layered protections including isolation of cloud environments, limits on exposing credentials to model context, approval gates for sensitive actions, and monitoring, but the company says risks remain and tests are preliminary.
- The launch places OpenAI in a new competitive market with Meta and xAI and could shift professional workflows by moving background work into persistent agents while raising new privacy and control questions because some Dot‑stored items cannot yet be viewed or deleted individually.