Asking for errands by text message
OpenAI on Oct. 28 (Oct. 29 Japan time) made it possible to communicate with "dots," ChatGPT's always-on AI agent, through iMessage on the iPhone and RCS messages on Android. ChatGPT's official account announced it on X.
Dots is an agent that handles errands on users' behalf, announced at OpenAI's developer conference in September. Until now, users could talk to it only within the ChatGPT app or on the web. Now they can ask for errands or things they want monitored by sending text, photos or voice memos. Dots also sends messages updating users on the progress of what they asked for.
Other messages are not read
To use it, users open the dots introduction screen in the app and select "Texting." According to OpenAI, only the user can send messages to dots, and dots sends messages only to the user. Neither dots nor OpenAI sees the content of users' other messages. As in the app, it can use prior context and connected plugins.
It is rolling out gradually as a test version, starting with Pro plan users in the U.S. OpenAI did not give pricing or a timeline for expanding to other countries and plans.
On the Pro plan, dots can be used without counting against usage limits. The day before, OpenAI also released plugins that let ChatGPT operate iCloud Mail and Calendar, and dots can use them as well.
Moving to multiple models
Thibault Sottiaux, who leads Codex at OpenAI, posted on X on Nov. 2 (Nov. 3 Japan time) that the models powering dots are being expanded to several, including GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Terra. Dots will choose the best model for each task and use different models for different parts of a task, he said. He said Terra is fast and has a better conversational personality, which will help bring dots to more people. He did not give a timeline.
Some expect it to expand to users of Plus, the plan below Pro, but OpenAI has not confirmed this.
