ChatGPT Dots: Here's What You Actually Need to Know

OpenAI just launched dots: always-on agents inside ChatGPT that keep working on a job after you close the chat, each on its own computer in the cloud. Here's what a dot actually is, what you'd hand one, where it stops and hands the decision back to you, who can get one right now (the map is stranger than "blocked in Europe"), and how it compares with Meta's Muse, which got there three weeks earlier, and Grok Bot from SpaceXAI (formerly xAI). Chapters 0:00 The invoice 0:58 What a dot is 2:14 What you hand it 3:21 Where it stops 5:09 Can you get one? 6:35 The other two 9:13 Your call Numbers checked on 1 Oct 2026. The invoice story is OpenAI's own example from an early tester. The scenes around it, the dot character and the example names (Alfred, Scout, Penny, Dex, Rio) are our illustration, in the style of OpenAI's launch film. Availability is from OpenAI's Help Center as read on 1 Oct 2026: the Pro rollout skips the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK, while Business Premium gets dots in every region ChatGPT supports. The countries named are from ChatGPT's supported countries list. The blocks in the limits scene are an illustration, not real amounts. The comparison of dots, Muse and Grok Bot is by shape, from each maker's own pages. It is not a ranking: we found no independent test that gives all three the same job (30 Sep 2026). Sources OpenAI · Introducing dots (29 Sep 2026): https://openai.com/index/introducing-... OpenAI · How we build safety, security and privacy into dots: https://openai.com/index/how-we-build... OpenAI on X · launch post: https://x.com/OpenAI/status/210498450... OpenAI on YouTube · Introducing dots:    • Introducing dots, always-on agents built t...   OpenAI Help Center · Getting started with your dot: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/2... OpenAI Help Center · Dots privacy, security, and safety FAQs: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/2... OpenAI dots docs · Control your dot: https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/dots/c... ChatGPT plugin directory: https://chatgpt.com/plugins OpenAI Help Center · ChatGPT supported countries: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7... Meta Newsroom · Introducing Muse (8 Sep 2026): https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/int... SpaceXAI docs · Grok Bot overview: https://docs.x.ai/grok-bot/overview SpaceXAI docs · Bots: https://docs.x.ai/grok-bot/bots SpaceXAI · Designing Grok Bot (3 Sep 2026): https://x.ai/news/designing-grok-bot