Complete OpenAI Dots Guide

A standard chatbot replies when you message it. A Dot can own work over time. It can keep going between conversations, monitor connected information, run recurring tasks, and bring back results or decisions.

Persistent

keeps working

Connected

uses approved apps

Visible

activity you can inspect

Bounded

asks when needed

Dots can manage ongoing tasks, remember relevant context, use connected apps, and report their progress, rather than only answering the prompt in front of them.

Astra provides the planning and agentic reasoning inside a Dot. It interprets goals, uses tools, adapts to new information, and knows when to ask.

Each Dot gets a cloud computer, a browser, and supported tools. It can keep working while your own computer is switched off.

Subject to availability and permissions, a Dot can work across tools like Drive, Calendar, GitHub, Slack, Teams, Codex, Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Dots can scan connected information for useful work. Background research runs with read-only access, so it cannot send, edit, or take control.

Assign recurring responsibilities, such as morning calendar briefs, ongoing research, reminders, and project monitoring, and manage them from the Dot profile.

Your Dot can draw on ChatGPT memory and its own saved context to learn your preferences, workflows, goals, standards, and past feedback.

Where supported, you can pick up the same thread across ChatGPT desktop, web, mobile, Slack, Teams, and voice, without starting from scratch.

ChatGPT helps with one conversation. A Dot can own an entire responsibility.

Continuity ties it all together. A Dot can own a defined slice of your workflow instead of handling one isolated request after another.

You control what a Dot can reach, how independently it works, what needs approval, and when work should stop. Dots can make mistakes, so review consequential output and actions.

• Custom Rules. Set which actions run automatically, only when pre-approved, after asking, or only by you.
• Auto-review. Actions that could matter are checked against your instructions, permissions, Custom Rules, and safety requirements.
• Watch and redirect. Inspect In Progress, Scheduled, and Completed work, then open the cloud computer and change course when needed.
• Pause or reset. Pause background work at any time. A reset deletes the Dot along with its conversations, memories, and scheduled tasks.
• Personal computer stays separate. Local access is off by default, needs an explicit desktop-app connection and permission, and can be revoked later.
• Privacy and access. You choose which applications a Dot can use. Disconnecting an app does not necessarily delete information already obtained from it.

Hand it a job, not a vague prompt.

Spell out the outcome, the information available, the actions it may take alone, the approval boundaries, what to monitor, the cadence, what good looks like, and when to bring you in.