ChatGPT's new dots agent runs 4.5-hour jobs while you sleep

dots is not just a chat companion. It can watch Gmail and the calendar on its own in the background and flag messages that genuinely need the user's attention, rather than simply listing every unreplied email. It can also catch mismatches between a date or place agreed over email and what is actually on the calendar.

The dedicated cloud computer changes the working rhythm. Because the dot keeps running even when the phone or PC is switched off, users can hand over a long job before leaving the office or going to bed and read the report the next morning. The author's own test — a 3D animation of how Tokyo Station would look through a day — took roughly four and a half hours of collecting weather and texture data, modeling and rendering in Blender, and was finished by the next morning.

The same capability extends to office work, from background research for a meeting to the finished slide output, which the author suggests could head off the last-minute scramble before a presentation. The trade-off is that only one dot can run at a time, so other work is largely blocked while it processes.