OpenAI launches Dots agents; early dessert trial reportedly needed handholding

OpenAI introduced Dots at its Sept. 29 developer conference, presenting agents designed to complete ongoing tasks proactively on users’ behalf, the Associated Press reported in SecurityWeek.

The company’s description emphasizes work that continues between user requests. In TBPN’s interview with OpenAI’s @thsottiaux, the OpenAI representative described agents that remain online, research proactively and consider users’ goals and preferences. The representative also described specialist Dots deployed internally on Mac minis, with separate identities, permissions and roles, including use for procurement.

A dessert order with repeated prompts

Jane Manchun Wong reported a firsthand trial in which she asked Dots to get desserts. The cannoli arrived, she wrote, but the task took half an hour and required considerable handholding.

In a follow-up, Wong described the agent getting stuck at an Uber Eats login on its own computer, then trying hers. She reported macOS permissions errors and trouble obtaining browser control. Even after it reached Uber Eats in Chrome on her computer, she said she had to prompt it repeatedly about progress.

That account describes one ordering attempt, rather than a benchmark of Dots’ reliability. It documents a completed task that, in Wong’s experience, still needed active supervision.