OpenAI unveils Dots, an always-on AI agent, at DevDay 2026
At OpenAI's 2026 developer conference (DevDay), OpenAI's CEO announced Dots, a new generation of always-on AI agent. Unlike earlier conversational assistants that users have to summon, Dots is designed as an agent that runs in the background over the long term, continuously aware of the user's work context and proactively advancing multi-step tasks.
Key points
- Always on: Dots is no longer a one-off question-and-answer interaction but an agent that can stay online for long periods and keep following the progress of tasks.
- Developer ecosystem: DevDay also opened the related APIs and toolchain to developers, making it easy to integrate always-on agent capabilities into all kinds of applications.
- Safety conspicuously absent: Notably, the company said little about safety considerations in this release, prompting outside discussion about the risks of agents running autonomously over the long term.
Always-on agents represent a leap in the form of AI applications: from a tool that answers when you ask to a collaborator that takes initiative. But permission boundaries, data security and the risk of losing control are questions that products of this kind will have to answer.
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