Agents
OpenAI launched Dots at DevDay. My thoughts. First, the good. Always-on is really really really what the market needed. It's why I find myse…
OpenAI launched Dots at DevDay. My thoughts. First, the good. Always-on is really really really what the market needed. It's why I find myself reaching for Instinct so often. I don’t have to think abo
OpenAI launched Dots at DevDay. My thoughts. First, the good. Always-on is really really really what the market needed. It's why I find myself reaching for Instinct so often. I don’t have to think about WiFi or my computer being open or Mac mini being on. Second, every Dot gets its own dedicated VM. Clearly a big compute commit, and it's the same directional bet Meta made with Muse. Will gladly take a persistent dedicated environment over a just-in-time spin-up (persistence is what makes an agent feel more like a teammate). Which unlocks the overarching use case: AI as an ambient watchdog. "Watch my Slacks and tell me to step in if two teams are duplicating work" or "watch my spend and apply for a better credit card” or “keep an eye on my calendar and handle all gift ordering” or “watch my Apple Watch and manage all my gym class bookings”. Dots give AI ongoing responsibilities 🔍 Underneath it all, the architecture feels like it’s settling on a direction too. A tax exec recently asked me about governance, and between smaller models and the Decisions API, what's winning right now feels like a big brain managing a thousand tiny ones (versus just one big brain). Also - anyone else notice the whole Dots product video was dictation? And in fact, not a single computer screen was shown? Some phones, tablets, TV monitors, and the back of one laptop. In my mind, this is a device-agnostic pitch. Maybe Dots are the brain or the working paradigm for the Ive device. Also, typing is dead. Multitasking - hypertasking, really - still feels unsolved, even if that’s a future state for Dots. A proactive agent means YOU'RE the one context-switching now, and I don't think we've cracked that UI. I hate chat threads as the main option. It's why so many dev superusers create their own work interface. Designers, what a great opportunity for you! The name... I’m sure they argued over names nonstop. "Dots" sells the swarm, but it makes it sound like you have to direct-manage a whole fleet of helpers. Although OpenAI is only giving users one primary Dot atm, the “team of dots” is promised for the future. Product name also sounds 10% too cute for the workplace but it’s also a response to how dev-oriented “Codex” felt. It’s a bit buggy right now, the early reviewers are right. But expect that to change over the next few weeks - this was an intentional early announce to pull attention back off of Muse, GrokBot, and Instinct. Smart imo. Always-on, watching, acting before you ask. The word of the year continues to be: PROACTIVE.
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Source: Allie K. Miller (X) | 2026-09-30