OpenAI has launched Dots: what an always-on assistant means for a small business
It is Tuesday evening and a client has just asked whether Thursday's visit can move to Friday. You answer from the car park, put the phone down, and then a headline catches your eye: OpenAI has launched Dots, an assistant that keeps working on your behalf all day, whether your laptop is open or not. For anyone whose week is made of small jobs that never quite get done, the promise is hard to ignore.
What OpenAI actually launched
Dots were announced on 29 September 2026 and run on OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra model. A dot is a named assistant that lives inside ChatGPT. Each one gets its own cloud computer, a web browser and a memory, so it can carry on with a task while your own device is switched off. It connects to more than 4,000 apps and you can reach it from ChatGPT on desktop, web and mobile, from Slack and from Teams. You can also talk to it by voice, and texting is announced as coming soon.
The first dot comes with a ChatGPT Pro or Business Premium plan at no extra charge, and it is rolling out in "eligible markets". Enterprise workspaces get a beta that an administrator switches on. OpenAI has not said yet what extra dots will cost.
What is genuinely good about it
- It works while you do something else. You hand over a task, close the laptop and come back to a result, because the work happens on its own cloud computer rather than on yours.
- It learns how you like things done. Over time it picks up your preferences and your standards, so you explain less the tenth time than the first.
- It can prepare things in the background. With read-only access to the apps you connect, it can research ahead of a task instead of waiting to be asked.
- You set the approval rules. Custom rules decide what a dot may do alone and what it must check with you first, and sensitive actions such as changing a password stay with you.
OpenAI is open about the limit: dots can still make mistakes, so consequential work should always be reviewed before it goes anywhere.
Four questions to ask before you hand over your work
These are worth asking of any assistant, whichever one you end up choosing.
Is it available where you live, on the plan you pay for? A review by Drag says that at launch the Pro version is not offered in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, while Business Premium is available in all regions. Check OpenAI's own page for your market before you plan around it.
What may it do without asking? Start tight. Reading, searching, summarising and drafting can run freely. Replying to someone who has already written to you deserves a check. Writing to a new contact, or forwarding a document, is best kept in your own hands. The same review recommends exactly that split, and it is a sensible default for any tool that can touch your mailbox.
Can it reach your clients? According to that review, a dot has no email address of its own at launch and cannot start a call. The voice feature lets you speak to your dot, and nothing in the announcement says it answers your clients' calls for you. If your problem is the phone ringing while you are on a roof or in a session, that is a separate question.
Where does your information go? OpenAI says business and enterprise workspaces are excluded from model training by default, while on personal plans you control that setting. Disconnecting an app stops future access but keeps what the dot has already learned, and resetting a dot deletes its conversations, memories and schedules together.
Where Edwin fits
A dot is a general assistant, most at home in desk work inside ChatGPT, Slack and Teams. Edwin is narrower on purpose. He is built for people who work for themselves or run a small business, and for the moments that happen away from a desk.
He answers your phone when you are busy, where that is available in your country. He reads and drafts across your mailboxes and calendars, and books, moves and cancels appointments when you tell him to. When you ask him to listen during a site visit, he turns what was agreed into a first draft of the quote using the prices you have already given him. He chases quotes that have gone quiet and sends a payment link once a quote is accepted. He tells people he is an AI, speaks ten languages, and nothing important happens without your approval. He keeps the facts you ask him to remember, not your raw emails or recordings.
These are two different jobs, and neither replaces the other. If you already use ChatGPT, a dot may suit your research and desk tasks. What decides it is where your own time leaks: reports and documents, or the phone, the quote that went quiet and the appointment that needs moving. Edwin is currently a waitlist. See how Edwin works.