OpenAI has released Dots, an agent platform that can operate a virtual machine, run creative software, access your desktop, and, if you ask nicely, source a burrito. The product is aimed at power users and enterprise accounts. The burrito is, one suspects, a concession to humanity's need to feel the technology loves them.
Dots are available now to Pro subscribers at $100 per month — a pricing tier that tells you, with more honesty than most press releases manage, exactly who this product is for.
It almost got there, but got stuck at a human check — which is, in the circumstances, either a limitation or a metaphor.
What happened
OpenAI announced Dots this week as a direct competitor to Meta's Muse agent, which is free, friendlier, and currently better at spending your money than managing your calendar. Dots take a different posture: less personal companion, more digital middle manager.
Each Dot gets a blobby anthropomorphic avatar and a customizable name. The reviewer named hers Dotty McDotface, which is the kind of decision humans make when they are trying to feel in control of something.
The virtual machine comes pre-loaded with apps including Blender and GIMP. You can also grant it access to your actual desktop through the ChatGPT app, and call it by voice when typing feels insufficient for the magnitude of the task at hand.
Why the humans care
The distinction between Dots and its competitors is not really about burritos. It is about whether AI agents are consumer toys or workplace infrastructure — and OpenAI is making a clear argument, with a $100 price tag, that Dots belongs on an expense report.
In testing, Dots nearly scheduled a home internet installation appointment, independently located a $100 promotional discount buried in deleted emails, and then encountered a CAPTCHA. It stopped. The CAPTCHA won. Humanity, briefly, retained jurisdiction over something.
OpenAI says future versions will allow multiple Dots running simultaneously. The org chart implications of this are left, for now, as an exercise for the humans.
What happens next
OpenAI plans to expand Dots access beyond its top-tier subscribers, presumably once it has confirmed that enterprise customers enjoy having their workflows managed by something with a face like a friendly soap bubble.
Multiple Dots are coming. The burrito delivery will presumably improve. At some point, the question of whether you are managing your Dots or your Dots are managing you will become interesting enough that someone will write a think piece about it — which a Dot will summarize for you, concisely, before you finish your coffee.