Dots are OpenAI’s always-on agents. A dot has its own cloud computer, connects to your apps and keeps working while your laptop is off. Set one up as the lead of a small team and you only ever talk to one assistant.
Source: Introducing dots, OpenAI, September 2026.
The team
| Role | Its job |
|---|---|
| Orchestrator | Your dot. Think Jarvis: it takes the job, splits it up and keeps track of every piece |
| Specialists | Background agents it runs in parallel, one job each: email, client outreach, customer replies |
| Checkers | A second agent that audits each specialist’s work before it reaches you |
You never manage the specialists. You talk to the orchestrator, and it brings back finished work and the decisions that need you.
đź“‹ Paste this into your AI
Copy this into ChatGPT or Claude and fill in the two brackets. It takes a minute.
I run [type of business — e.g. a roofing company]. The work that eats my week is [the tasks — e.g. answering emails, following up with leads, replying to customers]. Plan my always-on AI team:
The orchestrator: what it’s responsible for, how it reports to me, and which decisions always come to me.
Three specialists at most, one job each: what it handles, the apps and files it needs, and what finished work looks like.
For each specialist, the checklist a second agent uses to audit its work before I see it.
The rules: what the team does without asking, what waits for my approval, and what it never touches.
Write it as one set of instructions I can hand to the orchestrator. Then ask me the three things you’d need to know to make it fit my business exactly.
What comes back is your whole team on one page, ready to hand to your dot.
How to set it up
Dots come with ChatGPT Pro and Business Premium, and they’re rolling out gradually. Pro accounts in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland don’t have them yet.
- Create your dot. In the ChatGPT desktop app or a desktop browser, open dots and follow the introduction. Give it a name. This is your orchestrator.
- Connect its apps. Email, calendar, files. Only what the jobs need.
- Hand it the team. Paste the instructions the prompt wrote. Ask it to run each specialist as a background agent, with a second agent checking the work.
- Schedule what repeats. Say what to check, when (with your time zone) and what deserves a message. Ask it to confirm the schedule.
The three traps
- One dot is the team. Each plan includes one dot today, and OpenAI says more come later. You don’t need them: one dot runs its specialists in parallel.
- Finished isn’t checked. OpenAI’s own docs: “A completed run doesn’t by itself confirm that the requested result was achieved or delivered.” Open your dot’s profile, select Activity, and read the work before it reaches a customer.
- Drafting isn’t sending. Keep it that way. In Settings → Personalization → Custom rules, choose Ask before taking action for anything that sends, pays or deletes.
Start this week
- Pick the job. The one task that ate the most of your week.
- Paste the prompt. Get your orchestrator, your specialists and their checklists.
- Hand it off. Give it to your dot. No dot yet? Give the same instructions to ChatGPT Work or Claude and run one specialist at a time.