On 29 September, at its DevDay conference, OpenAI launched Dots: AI assistants that each run on their own computer in the cloud, connect to the apps you already use and carry on working after you close the chat. Larger firms have people to watch the inbox and chase the paperwork. A sole trader or small owner-run business usually has one person doing all of it, which is why this launch deserves their attention more than most.
The announcement
What OpenAI has actually launched
A Dot is a personal AI assistant powered by OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra model. Each one has its own computer and web browser running in OpenAI’s cloud, a memory that builds up as you give it feedback, and access to the apps you connect through ChatGPT, of which OpenAI says there are more than 4,000. You can message it in ChatGPT on the web, desktop and mobile, and through Slack and Microsoft Teams, with text messaging to follow.
The important difference is not the model. It is the way the assistant works. An ordinary chatbot waits for you to type, answers and stops. A Dot is given an objective and keeps working on it, can keep several jobs moving at once, and carries out background research while you are busy with something else. The examples at launch were deliberately ordinary: booking a table, monitoring customer feedback and, in one early tester’s account, noticing an invoice that still needed to be sent.
Some of what was shown is not available yet. ‘Specialist Dots’, which take on a defined role such as invoice processing, customer support or procurement with their own credentials, are in a pilot with larger organisations. Teams of Dots working together are described as a future plan. What most businesses can use today is one general-purpose Dot.
Why owners
Why this matters most when the owner is the bottleneck
In a larger company, admin waits in a department. In an owner-run business it waits for the owner. The electrician is on a job, the physiotherapist is between appointments and the bookkeeper is up against a deadline. The enquiry that arrives at ten in the morning gets its reply at eight in the evening, the quote follow-up slips a week and the invoice goes out late because nobody else was there to send it.
Until now, AI has mostly helped those owners only when they sat down to use it. A chatbot can draft a good reply, but opening it is one more job at the end of the day. Automation tools can run in the background, but each workflow has to be designed, built and maintained, which is rarely practical for a business of one or two people without outside help.
Dots sit between the two. You describe the job in plain language, set the limits and it works in the background while you get on with the paid work. The change is not that the AI is cleverer than last month’s chatbot. It is that it no longer needs your attention to do its part. For someone who is their own receptionist, administrator and credit controller, that could genuinely change what it is practical to keep on top of.
Where it could help
The jobs worth handing over first
The best first jobs are the small, repetitive ones that currently wait for you. Each of the examples below follows the same pattern: the assistant does the preparation and you make the decision. That is not caution for its own sake. These are the jobs where a mistake reaches a customer, and in a small business your name is on every message.
- Enquiries waiting for a reply Draft a response to each new enquiry that asks for the details you always need, ready for you to approve from your phone.
- Quotes that went quiet Keep track of quotes sent and prepare a polite follow-up when one has had no reply after an agreed number of days.
- Invoices and reminders Spot finished jobs that have not been invoiced and prepare reminders for overdue ones, for you to check and send.
- Bookings and paperwork Gather booking details, confirmations and job documents into the right folder before the appointment.
Setting the limits
Decide what it may do, what it must ask and what it must never do
OpenAI has built in more controls than many people will expect. Each Dot starts with rules about when it may act and when it must ask, and you can add your own rules to allow, require approval for or block specific actions. Background research uses read-only tools, so it cannot send messages or change anything. An activity view shows what the Dot has been doing and lets you step in, actions that affect accounts or share information are checked automatically, and sensitive tasks such as changing passwords stay with you.
Those are sensible defaults, but they are OpenAI’s defaults, not yours. OpenAI’s own guidance is plain: ‘Dots can still make mistakes, so always review consequential work.’ At launch the company also said it had held back a newer version of the underlying model because it did not yet stay reliably within the scope and permissions it was given. Keeping an assistant inside its limits is still a live problem, which is why the limits should be written by the person who knows the business.
Before you connect anything, write three short lists. It takes half an hour and turns ‘keep a human in the loop’ into rules you can actually set.
- It may do alone Read, sort, summarise, research and prepare drafts. Nothing that leaves the business.
- It must ask first Anything sent to a customer, supplier or the public, and anything that changes a booking, price or record.
- It must never do Make payments or refunds, accept terms, delete records or handle bank details and sensitive personal information.
- Who checks, and when Look through the activity view every day for the first fortnight, then decide whether any rule can be relaxed.
Availability in the UK
The catch for UK sole traders: which plan you need
At launch, Dots are not available on ChatGPT Pro in the UK, the European Economic Area or Switzerland, and OpenAI has not said when that will change. The route for a UK business today is ChatGPT Business with a Premium seat, which includes the first Dot at no extra charge. Enterprise customers can try it if their administrator switches it on.
At the time of writing, OpenAI lists Premium seats at $125 per person per month, or $100 on annual billing, and a Business workspace needs at least two paid seats. A Premium seat plus a $25 Standard seat meets that minimum, so a sole trader should expect to pay for a second seat, which could go to a partner, a part-time assistant or a bookkeeper. Check the price in your own account before committing, because UK pricing, VAT and launch terms may differ.
OpenAI has not yet published the ongoing usage allowance or the price of additional Dots, and the first month comes with extended limits. The sensible test is therefore not whether this is a lot to spend on software. It is whether the time you get back each week, and the invoices and follow-ups that stop slipping, are worth more than the monthly cost once the introductory period ends.
Read carefully
What to check before you connect your email
A Dot works with whatever you connect to it. In a small business that usually means an inbox and calendar full of customer names, addresses and, in some trades, health or financial details. Under UK GDPR you remain responsible for that information. OpenAI says content in Business workspaces is not used to train its models by default. Check where the data is processed and what is kept, and update your privacy notice if customer information will pass through a new supplier.
Memory needs thought too. OpenAI’s guidance notes that disconnecting an app does not erase what a Dot has already learned from it, and that resetting a Dot deletes its conversations, memories and scheduled tasks together. Connect only what the first job genuinely needs, and keep banking and payment accounts out of it entirely.
Finally, Dots are a day old. There is no independent evidence yet about how reliable they are over weeks of real work, and pricing after the first month is unknown. None of that makes the launch unimportant. It means the sensible response is a narrow, well-supervised trial, not rebuilding how the business runs around a new product.
What to do now
A sensible first month
Pick one job that currently waits for you, such as replying to new enquiries. Write down how you do it today: the information you always ask for, what a good reply looks like and what you would never say. That written brief is what makes any assistant useful, and it is worth having whether or not you use Dots.
Connect only the apps that job needs. Set everything that leaves the business to ‘ask first’, review the activity view daily for the first two weeks and relax a rule only when the Dot has earned it. Keep a note of what it got right, what you corrected and how long the job now takes, so you can judge the cost honestly when the introductory month ends.
If you are on ChatGPT Pro in the UK, you cannot use Dots yet, and there is no need to rush. The groundwork is the same whichever tool you end up with: a clearly described job, written limits and a routine for checking the work. Businesses that have that in place will be able to try Dots, a rival product or a simpler automation quickly and safely when the time is right.