PRODUCTS

ChatGPT 'Dots' want to give you a different agent

As personal AI assistants capture the public's attention, fueled by the viral rise of Meta Muse, OpenAI is pushing further into the space with a next-generation of AI agents, backed by more than 35 million weekly users across ChatGPT Work and Codex.

On Tuesday, at its OpenAI DevDay event, the company unveiled over 20 new announcements, led by its newest product, Dots, always-on agents with their own cloud computer that work across your apps such as Slack, Messages, and Teams, and take action on your behalf once a goal is defined. 

Dots are powered by GPT-6 Astra, the most advanced model in OpenAI's family, and, as a result, OpenAI says they are built to handle substantial, multi-step work. Like most AI products, Dots gets to know the user over time and becomes more helpful. It can also proactively look for ways to help, such as using information from your connected apps to provide useful updates about them. Although these sound like capabilities OpenAI has already delivered, the company describes Dots as feeling different from Codex or ChatGPT, highlighting its proactive capabilities and the range of what it can do. Ultimately, we'll be able to see for ourselves. 

While using its most advanced model is more costly, it makes sense that the company is willing to pay the price as GPT-6 Astra is also the most aligned. With the Dots needing access to a significant amount of a user's information, security is of the utmost importance. This is evidenced by the launch of Muse, which has now been under scrutiny for the potential risks of sharing information with others. To build on this idea of safety, which users are likely to be most concerned about, OpenAI says it has built in additional precautions. 

For instance, users can set Custom Rules that tell it exactly what it's allowed to do on its own, what it needs to ask permission for, and what it cannot do. To perform sensitive actions, such as changing a password or deleting data, users must give explicit permission. Dots from ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, or Edu workspaces are not used to improve OpenAI's models by default. On personal ChatGPT plans, it seems users have to take an extra step to turn it off. 

At launch, users can start with one Dot, with the plan being that teams of Dots will be working on users' behalf in the future. The feature will be available in ChatGPT on the web, mobile, and desktop starting today for Pro and Business Premium users across all supported ChatGPT regions.

The chance to test a more proactive, capable AI agent is exciting, but this release arrives at an interesting moment. Meta brought agents to the mainstream with Muse, whose approachable design draws in even beginners. Still, many people, myself included, are wary of handing Meta their data, and on that front OpenAI has the edge. My bigger concern is rogue agents. OpenAI points to its guardrails, but agents that go rogue tend to slip past those very safeguards, and it's unclear how the company will win people's trust on that front. Starting with power users, however, is a smart move: it limits the fallout if something goes wrong and gives OpenAI room to learn and iterate. We are looking forward to testing Dots and sharing our findings with The Deep View audience.  

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PRODUCTS

OpenAI rolls out deluge of new tools for AI builders

Heavy AI users rejoice. OpenAI has rolled out new options aimed at accelerating the stuff you're already doing and making it safer.

On Tuesday, at the company's fourth annual DevDay event in San Francisco, OpenAI showed off its new "Dots" strategy with AI agents that are always-on and run in their own separate cloud computer. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's not unlike Meta's new Muse agent that went viral this month, but OpenAI's agent is more focused on power users. See Sabrina Ortiz's full breakdown on Dots.

While Dots may have stole the headlines, OpenAI also unveiled other new features that dedicated ChatGPT and Codex users should note:

• GPT-6.1 Sol: OpenAI's latest model provides "near Astra intelligence" at a fifth of the price. The model sports improved performance in agentic coding, computer use and professional work, and runs $2 per million input tokens, 10 cents per million cached tokens, and $10 per million output tokens.

• ChatGPT Space: This is a collaborative workspace where you, your teammates and AI can work together. Spaces also allows users to keep everything they share with and create in ChatGPT in one place. It will also let you collaborate in a shared workspace similar to the way you might in a shared Google Doc.

• New $500/month plan and Ultrafast: OpenAI is creating a high-end tier that offers access to Ultrafast, which delivers up to eight times the speed in Codex using GPT-6 Astra and six times the speed in the API. However, For those on the $200 per month Pro plan, included usage of ChatGPT Work and Codex decreases from 20 times to 10 times that of the Plus allowance, and GPT-6 Pro messages in ChatGPT will be cut from 200 to 100 per week. 

• Codex in the cloud: Codex can now start, review, and continue work from the desktop app, the mobile app, or the web. And since it's not limited to working on just the local files on your machine, you can move between devices much more easily. 

• Plugin extensions: Developers can now build applications and plugins that are native to ChatGPT and Codex, and can reach more users with improved submission and discovery. And now those plugins will appear in the sidebar on the left side of your ChatGPT window, with services like Adobe and Figma being some of the first ones there at launch.

• Private Intelligence: OpenAI has enabled zero data retention and private safety processing policies for offline, automated safety reviews. Additionally, Private Inference will be available in preview, bringing strict control to confidential computing. 

• OpenAI Marketplace: Eligible US-based enterprise customers can apply their existing OpenAI token spend towards approved third-party software. This marketplace is launching in beta with 32 partners, including Adobe, Figma, Sierra, and Harvey. 

While it would be easy to look at OpenAI's DevDay as its answer to Meta's newfound momentum in the AI space, the reality is actually quite different. Meta's Muse agent is primarily focused on the consumer space and bringing agents to the masses with its focus on cute interactive avatars and wide publicity across Instagram and Facebook. OpenAI has lessened its focus on consumer AI in 2026 and leaned into enterprises, developers, and power users, and DevDay only doubled down on that strategy. Meta's agent is open to all and has generous token allotments based on Meta's strategy of eventually taking a percentage when you use Muse to sell stuff and make money. OpenAI is only offering its new agent to its highest-tier Pro and Business Premium customers. So OpenAI's focus is on its most-invested AI builders and organizations. And that strategy is supported by all of the other features it released around Dots on Tuesday, from Private Intelligence to GPT-6.1 Sol to its new Ultrafast feature. All of these things are aimed much more at competing with Anthropic for power users than competing with Meta for consumers.

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POLICY

Washington puts AI safety on the honor system

Despite pleas from industry experts to slow down and regulate the pace of AI, the Trump Administration isn't budging on its approach.

Following a Tuesday meeting with AI industry figureheads, President Donald Trump has rejected the notion that the AI industry needs additional regulation, and that existing laws will be enough to prevent the risks the tech poses.

Instead, Trump and six of AI's biggest names, including Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Google's Sundar Pichai, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI's Greg Brockman, SpaceXAI's Elon Musk and Nvidia's Jensen Huang, signed the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, a code that Trump called "morally binding," promising to self-regulate the risks of development. 

The accord states that each company will implement four "layers" of controls and audits, including: 

• Implementing robust internal controls to monitor model capability and alignment during training and deployment, with specific areas of risk including cybersecurity, biosecurity and chemical threats. 

• Giving an internal team the authority to ensure that all safeguards, controls and monitoring are operating as intended.

• Partnership with external auditors to assess whether these safeguards and monitoring systems are operating properly. 

• And creating a designated committee on these companies' boards of directors that oversee the teams running the safeguards and controls and the internal and external teams evaluating them. 

The accord states that the signatories would regularly meet to establish standards and improve their safety systems. Additionally, it states that "over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws and regulations." 

This accord follows Trump rejecting calls for increased regulation and a slowed pace of development, calling the increased AI safety alarmism a "hoax" during an on-stage call with Huang at an event hosted by the "All-In" podcast in mid-September.

While these layers of protection are good in theory, the only thing enforcing this accord is the honor system, rather than actual law and regulation that creates consequences for the risks this tech could present. And though the leaders of these companies have largely been urging for safe development, they are all also the ones consistently pushing the frontier. Real safeguards won't result from a good faith system where companies promise they will try their best to keep the risks reined in. Additionally, these companies holding themselves accountable will only become more difficult as Anthropic and OpenAI approach public market debuts. And while regulation has often struggled to keep up with the pace of technology, in the case of tech that these companies claim could cause "catastrophic risk, the best way to get substantial safeguards may be from the real consequences and outside accountability that regulation can provide. 

LINKS

• World model firm General Intuition raises $220 million at $6.2 billion

• Apple reportedly considered cutting 5,000 Apple Care workers for agents

• Trump Administration launches America.gov government chatbot

• AI housing tool EliseAI raises $350 million, $4 billion valuation

• OpenAI hit with lawsuit over Hugging Face breach

• Anthropic says GLM-5 can autonomously build cyber exploits

• Muse for Small Business: Meta has launched a dedicated agent for small business workplaces. 

• Automations in Perplexity Computer: Allow for ongoing work, actions in response to triggers or schedules, and works with memory, skills, and connected apps. 

• DiffusionGemma: Google's open-source AI can now be turned into a "Jev-like model." 

• Google Diffusion Controller: A lightweight steering damper that precisely steers image generation for better prompt alignment.

• Corridor: AI Engineer

• Human Longevity Inc.: Applied AI Engineer (LLMs, Agents, and Healthcare AI)

• Simple AI: AI Agent Engineer

• Seso: Software Engineer, AI/Agents

GAMES

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