Topline
OpenAI on Tuesday afternoon launched Dots, an AI assistant that can work in the background and across thousands of apps, joining Meta and other big tech companies in the race to build mass publicly available AI agents.
29 September 2026, United States, San Francisco: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is speaking at the AI company’s developer conference. Photo: Andrej Sokolow/dpa (Photo by Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images)
dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
Key Facts
Open AI announced Dots at its annual developer conference, describing them as assistants that can keep working on tasks even when you’re not actively using them.
Dots can connect to more than 4,000 apps, and users can give a Dot a task and ask it to work in the background, using its own cloud computer.
OpenAI says users can connect with their Dot agent in ChatGPT, Slack, Microsoft Teams, with texting coming soon, using them to update projects and research information.
The Dots agents will compete with Muse, the AI agent Meta released earlier this month, Gemini Spark, which Google released in May, and Instinct, an AI agent start-up.
KEY BACKGROUND
OpenAI’s announcement comes just weeks after Meta released Muse, its own always-available AI assistant, while Google and other companies are working on technology that can interact with other apps and complete tasks. Muse, which Dots will be in direct competition with, can connect to everyday services including email, calendars, shopping and travel.
FURTHER READING
Meta Launches Muse Personal AI Agent As Staff Flag Security Flaws (Forbes)
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