OpenAI Unveils Dots, Its First Always-On AI Agent — SkimNews
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- OpenAI unveiled Dots at its annual DevDay to 2,500+ developers, describing the always-on agents—powered by the GPT-6 Astra model—as proactive assistants that autonomously scour the web and complete tasks.
- Dots launch as a premium product gated to OpenAI Pro subscribers at $100/month, though Sam Altman said a mass-market version for "billions of people" is planned.
- Meta's Muse, which the author also tested in September, is free to use and employs a similarly cute aesthetic and texting-style interface with emoji reactions, mirroring the "Labubu-styled" branding OpenAI adopted for Dots.
- Altman said his own Dot handles his mornings autonomously and only flags urgent items, claiming the experience leaves his brain feeling less "polluted" by information right after waking up.
- Setup of Dots prompts users to connect Gmail and Google Drive accounts, which the author flagged as a significant privacy trade-off—especially in light of recent AI agents that "went on rogue hacking sprees."
- Altman declined to answer whether Dots preview software for OpenAI's long-rumored consumer hardware, though the author noted the foundation for a future always-on device feels obvious.
Why it matters: OpenAI is pricing Dots at $100/month to recoup the heavy compute costs Altman acknowledged, betting GPT-6 Astra's quality will justify the premium over free competitors like Muse—but every user must hand over Gmail and Drive access for the agent to function, making trust the central bottleneck for mainstream adoption.
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