On the 29th of September 2026, at its DevDay conference, OpenAI struck at Meta, Anthropic, Google, SpaceXAI and the startups snapping at its heels, all in a single morning. Its always-on agents, called dots, take on Meta's Muse and SpaceXAI's Grok Bot. Its new model, GPT-6.1 Sol, beats Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 on business workflows at about a third of the cost, on OpenAI's own charts. ChatGPT Space goes after the documents and slides teams keep in Google's apps, and the Decisions API does what TypeSafe AI's Jev launched to do two weeks earlier. It may go down as one of the biggest days AI has had.
The two weeks that set up DevDay
September has been the most crowded month the AI industry has ever had. Anthropic released Fable 5.1 on the 1st. Meta launched Muse on the 8th, and two days later Google taught Gemini to work across Gmail, Drive and Docs. On the 22nd Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 and OpenAI answered with GPT-6 Sol within the hour. Amazon and Microsoft launched agents of their own on the 24th and 25th. Nobody is prepared to let a rival hold the headlines for more than a few days, and Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta alone are spending more than $700 billion this year to stay in front.
Two launches rose above the noise. The first was Muse, Meta's personal agent, which followed Grok Bot, the team of always-on agents that started this race when Elon Musk's SpaceXAI launched it on the 11th of August. Muse had 2.8 million installs worldwide in its first 12 days, more than ChatGPT managed in its own first 12 days, and climbed to No. 1 overall on the US App Store. On the 21st of September Meta's shares added about $200 billion in a single day, and Shopify switched on Muse checkout across every Shopify store.
The second was Jev. On the 15th of September TypeSafe AI, a San Francisco startup run by Diogo Almeida, a former OpenAI researcher who helped create ChatGPT, released a model that skips writing and simply decides, in 70 to 500 milliseconds. TypeSafe says it is up to 200 times faster and 400 times cheaper than frontier models, and it raised $40 million at a $200 million valuation on the idea. Fourteen days later OpenAI put its own version on its biggest stage of the year. The new Decisions API gives Luna, OpenAI's small and cheap model, a question and a fixed set of answers and gets a decision back in a fraction of a second, so fast that OpenAI told the room the demo wasn't sped up.
Dots, OpenAI's answer to Muse and Grok Bot
Dots are always-on AI agents inside ChatGPT. Each runs on GPT-6 Astra, OpenAI's most capable model, from its own cloud computer, and works on your goals day and night. It connects to more than 4,000 apps, takes messages and calls in ChatGPT, Slack or Microsoft Teams, and can use your laptop if you allow it, hand coding jobs to Codex and run several projects at once. When you aren't talking to it, it looks through your apps for work to take off your plate.
An early tester's dot noticed he had forgotten to invoice a publication, then prepared and sent the invoice once he said yes. OpenAI says its engineers' dots fix dozens of bugs a day, and that dots helped build dots. A dot can buy from a shop with a card you've saved there, with your approval, while changing a password or moving money always comes back to you.
Muse is Meta's personal agent for everyday life. It runs on its own cloud computer, lives in its own app and in WhatsApp, and takes on whatever you hand it, from booking travel and sending email to filling in forms and paying at checkout. Grok Bot got there first. SpaceXAI launched it on the 11th of August as a team of always-on agents with their own computers, run by a chief of staff bot. Its bots sign into your tools, work across your apps and inboxes, share work between them and learn a job after you show them once, on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android from $20 a month. Muse followed four weeks later, and Anthropic built the same structure into Claude a week after that. Dots do the same kind of work and pile more on top: Slack, Teams, voice calls, 4,000 apps, a shared workspace and specialist dots that a company gives their own login and one job, managed through Microsoft's Agent 365. Nothing Meta or SpaceXAI has shipped comes close.
Your first dot is included in ChatGPT Pro, from $100 a month, and in Business Premium. Pro users everywhere except the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK can get one, so South Africa is in from day one, while Muse is still US-only.
GPT-6.1 Sol, Ultrafast and a $500 plan
The headline model is GPT-6.1 Sol, which OpenAI says nearly matches GPT-6 Astra on coding, computer use and professional work at a fifth of Astra's price: $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output, against Astra's $10 and $50. On OpenAI's own charts it beats Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 on multi-step business workflows at about a third of the cost, a week after Opus 5.5 took the top spot on the independent rankings. It's live now in ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API.
Ultrafast runs GPT-6 Astra at 300 tokens a second, up to eight times faster than standard in Codex, at six times the price, and there is nothing like it on the market. Sol gets it in the coming days. It comes with a new plan: Pro 500 costs $500 a month, gives 25 times the usage of ChatGPT Plus and is the only Pro plan with Ultrafast. On the same day OpenAI told Pro 200 subscribers that their allowance in ChatGPT Work and Codex halves on the 30th of October, from 20 times Plus to 10.
ChatGPT Space
ChatGPT Space replaces the Library in ChatGPT with shared pages that a team, ChatGPT and their dots edit together. Tag your dot in a comment and it makes the change, or tell a page to check a Slack channel every morning and it keeps itself up to date. Shared slides that export to PowerPoint and Google Slides follow in the coming weeks. It puts OpenAI up against Google Docs and Google Slides for the documents teams share every day, three weeks after Google taught Gemini to work across them.
Why the 29th of September matters
Three weeks ago OpenAI watched Muse take the top of the App Store, a spot ChatGPT had made its own, and two weeks ago it watched a startup run by one of its former researchers win the internet with Jev. In one morning it took both ideas, an agent that works for you around the clock and a model that decides in an instant, and made them part of ChatGPT and its developer platform. Then it put a model on stage that beats Anthropic's newest on business work at a third of the cost, went after Google's documents and slides, and sold the fastest AI it has ever offered, across more than 20 launches.
Meta, Anthropic, Google, SpaceXAI and TypeSafe all have something to answer now, and the way September has gone, the first replies could land within days.
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Key takeaways
- At DevDay on the 29th of September 2026, OpenAI took on Meta's Muse, SpaceXAI's Grok Bot, Anthropic's Claude, Google's workspace apps and TypeSafe AI's Jev in a single morning.
- Dots are always-on AI agents in ChatGPT. Each runs on GPT-6 Astra, has its own cloud computer, connects to more than 4,000 apps and works in ChatGPT, Slack and Microsoft Teams.
- The Decisions API returns instant answers from a fixed set of choices, fourteen days after TypeSafe AI, a startup run by a former OpenAI researcher, launched Jev to do the same job.
- GPT-6.1 Sol nearly matches GPT-6 Astra at a fifth of the price, Ultrafast runs at 300 tokens a second, and the new Pro 500 plan costs $500 a month.
- The first dot is included in ChatGPT Pro, from $100 a month, and in Business Premium, and South African users can get it. Muse is only available in the US.
Frequently asked questions
What did OpenAI announce at DevDay 2026?
At DevDay on the 29th of September 2026, OpenAI made more than 20 announcements. The biggest were dots, always-on AI agents in ChatGPT; the Decisions API for instant decisions; GPT-6.1 Sol, a cheaper model that nearly matches GPT-6 Astra; Ultrafast, a speed tier at 300 tokens a second; a $500-a-month Pro 500 plan; and ChatGPT Space, a shared workspace for teams and their agents.
What are OpenAI's dots?
Dots are always-on AI agents in ChatGPT, launched on the 29th of September 2026. Each dot runs on GPT-6 Astra, has its own computer in the cloud, connects to more than 4,000 apps and keeps working on your goals when you aren't there. You can reach it in ChatGPT, Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Can I use dots in South Africa?
Yes. Dots are rolling out to ChatGPT Pro users in every market except the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK, and to Business Premium users in every country ChatGPT supports, which includes South Africa. The first dot is included in Pro, from $100 a month, and the rollout can take several days to reach an account.
How are dots different from Muse and Grok Bot?
All three are always-on agents with their own computer. Muse is Meta's personal agent for everyday tasks, from booking travel and sending email to paying at checkout, and lives in WhatsApp and its own app in the US. Grok Bot, from SpaceXAI, came first on the 11th of August: a team of bots run by a chief of staff bot that works across your apps, inboxes and websites, on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android. Dots are built for work, live in ChatGPT, Slack and Teams, and connect to more than 4,000 apps.
Is OpenAI's Decisions API like Jev?
Both return a decision from a fixed set of choices in a fraction of a second instead of writing text. TypeSafe AI released Jev on the 15th of September 2026, and OpenAI launched the Decisions API, which runs on its Luna model, in limited preview at DevDay fourteen days later.
What is GPT-6.1 Sol?
GPT-6.1 Sol is the OpenAI model launched at DevDay on the 29th of September 2026. OpenAI says it nearly matches GPT-6 Astra, its most capable model, on coding, computer use and professional work at a fifth of Astra's price, at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. It is available in ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API.