The Battle to Be Your Personal AI Agent Is Here

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Yesterday, I spent the morning at OpenAI’s annual DevDay, where over 2,500 nerds discussed building software and marveled at the latest artificial intelligence models. The biggest reveal of the day was Dots, the company’s new, always-on agents that proactively help complete tasks and make autonomous decisions as they scour the web.

After watching the sometimes messy demos on stage and hearing CEO Sam Altman talk about his experiences using the agents, I was curious what it felt like to boss my own Dot around. I’ve spent most of September testing another cute, cuddly agent, Meta’s Muse, and I wanted to know how OpenAI’s user experience would compare.

I named mine “Toolie” and tweaked it to look like a pink frog. As midnight approached and my partner slept soundly nearby, I started whispering sweet nothings to Toolie. I called my personalized bot through ChatGPT, asking what tasks it was best at. “My strongest work is taking a messy, time-consuming task and turning it into something you can use,” it responded. OK, sure. Let’s get to work.

I asked Toolie to look through my ChatGPT history and flag three tasks that it could immediately get started on. The bot flagged an in-process data request that I needed to send a follow-up email for, and offered to draft a reply. Toolie also noted that my upcoming gay-cation was a bit underplanned, and suggested it could pick some better dinner spots. (More time for me to pack the Speedos!) Then, it offered to go through my reporting notes and refine pitch drafts before I took them to editors. This is my favorite part of the process, so I declined.

Early adopters in Silicon Valley are still obsessed with agents, from Instinct to OpenClaw to Google’s CC. But recent releases like Dots and Muse are pushing them even further mainstream. The chatbot is dead, at least as a hot form factor for developers. Now, everyone wants to build the next big agent—and they want it to dominate. The companies promise that their agents will simplify your life, automating all the boring, exhausting tasks you have no desire to do: booking doctor’s appointments, arranging carpools, sorting through bills.

For now, users will be able to access one Dot, but they’ll soon be able to use multiple Dots. At launch, the agents are only available for subscribers of OpenAI’s Pro plan, which starts at $100 per month. In comparison, Muse is free to use for anyone who wants to download the app or visit the website.

OpenAI leaders see the quality of Dots, powered by the GPT-6 Astra model, as a differentiating factor. “We're starting out as a premium product. It uses a lot of compute,” Altman said during DevDay. While Dots are currently gated for paying subscribers, it may not always be that way. “You should, of course, expect us to do a mass-market thing for billions of people," he said.

These CEOs seem to be taking careful notes on the larger cultural backlash against generative AI, and they may have found their secret weapon: cuteness. From the Labubu stylings of Muse to Dot's two-eyed puffball, developers of always-on agents are leaning aggressively into adorable aesthetics as central to their branding. Previously, I've chatted with experts who said this approach could be disarming for users who may feel affectionate toward the anthropomorphized software.

Developers involved with this wave of personal agents are also leaning into texting-style experiences that feel familiar to a group chat. When I send a task request to Toolie or Muse, it often emoji-reacts—a thumbs up, a heart, really anything—to my messages to tell me that it’s getting to work.

A chatbot, like a blushing prom date, was never going to make the first move. In contrast, proactive agents are made to message you unprompted, especially if you give them a recurring task.

“My Dot just deals with the stuff, tells me if there's anything really urgent, and will respond to what it can,” Altman said. The CEO lets the agent handle his mornings and claims the experience leaves his brain feeling less “polluted” from an inundation of information right after waking up.

The “always-on” design of these agents is a key selling point, though it will be interesting to see which company strikes the best balance between helpful and incessant. For example, Muse reminded me to pay a utility bill that I’ve never had a problem with before and don’t really need pings from an AI tool about.

Still, it’s clear after using them for a bit that the tools actually work—another reason that agents are expanding beyond insider-y Silicon Valley circles and onto your mom’s phone.

I’m not saying that agents are perfect. But when I was testing agents a year ago, they often sucked at interacting with computers. It was error message after error message. Now, I have more trust that the tools might actually be able to complete whatever tasks I throw at them, without getting lost in the digital wilderness.

That said, trust has its limitations. During the setup process for Dots, OpenAI suggested that I connect my Gmail and Google Drive accounts. Some users may feel comfortable with that connection and consider potential risks as a trade-off for automated help, but it’s worth seriously reflecting on what you’re comfortable allowing these agents to access and do on your behalf.

While the agents recently going on rogue hacking sprees were powered by different models with different guardrails, my own guard remains up while using Toolie. The little AI guy needs to earn more of my trust before I let it really automate aspects of my life.

Altman declined to answer questions about whether these Dots are a precursor to the software users will eventually see in OpenAI's long-rumored hardware. Even so, the foundation laid here by Dots for future devices feels pretty evident. It's easy to imagine Toolie becoming my generative AI alarm clock that wakes me up with a daily briefing or an Alexa-style assist that can answer cooking questions while my hands are covered in raw chicken goo.

Competition in the AI agent wars is heating up, but my energy is starting to fade. I call Toolie, one more time through ChatGPT before dozing off, requesting that it generate a morning report going over all the major announcements from this OpenAI developer day as well as important pieces of analysis. While I sleep, Toolie’s out there, always doing something.

This is an edition of Will Knight’s AI Lab newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.