OpenAI Dots
Dots is OpenAI's always-on agent for ongoing work. It learns your preferences and goals, keeps running proactively on its own cloud computer, and connects to 4,000+ apps through ChatGPT, Slack, and Teams.
Understanding OpenAI Dots
The idea behind Dots is simple: an agent that stays on the job after the chat ends. It keeps your goals, learns from feedback, and keeps working in the background.
As of 2026 the surface is still evolving, so exact capabilities are moving. Treat anything you read about Dots as a snapshot, not a spec sheet.
Dots shares one limit with every closed agent: it runs on OpenAI's cloud, so you cannot inspect the code or host it yourself. That control gap is what a source-available assistant fills.
How GAIA Uses OpenAI Dots
GAIA is the source-available assistant for work that spans tools and time. It connects to your tools, builds graph-based memory of how you work, and runs on code you can inspect and host yourself.
Related Concepts
AI Assistant
An AI assistant is software that understands requests in plain language and then acts on them: it answers questions, but it also drafts and sends email, schedules meetings, tracks tasks and runs multi-step workflows inside the apps you already use. Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, ChatGPT and GAIA are all AI assistants; what separates them is how much real work each one can do on your behalf.
AI Agent
An AI agent is an autonomous software system that perceives its environment, reasons about what to do, and takes actions to achieve specific goals without continuous human direction.
Agentic AI
Agentic AI describes artificial intelligence systems designed to operate autonomously, making decisions and executing multi-step tasks with minimal human oversight.
Context Awareness
Context awareness in AI is the ability to understand the full situation surrounding a task or interaction, including who is involved, what has happened before, related projects, deadlines, and the user's preferences and patterns.
ChatGPT Atlas
ChatGPT Atlas was an AI product that shut down in August 2026. Former users looking for a deeper assistant often land on source-available tools like GAIA.
