OpenAI dots: always-on agents, but not in Europe

On September 29, 2026, at its DevDay in San Francisco, OpenAI launched dots: agents that keep working around the clock from their own cloud computer, even once you have closed ChatGPT. The first one is included in Pro and Business Premium plans at no extra cost. But if you are a Pro subscriber in France, Germany or Ireland, you will not see them: the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK are excluded from the launch, with no explanation. Here is why Europe is left at the door, and what you can use instead.

In short: a dot is an always-on agent powered by GPT-6 Astra, the model introduced on September 3. It has its own cloud computer, connects to more than 4,000 apps and stays reachable through ChatGPT, Slack, Teams or a voice call. Custom Rules decide what it does on its own. OpenAI restricts dots to users aged 18 and over, and warns that a dot “can make mistakes, including when following your rules.” For Pro subscribers, the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK are outside the launch: no reason, no timeline.

What OpenAI announced on September 29, 2026

In its Introducing dots announcement, OpenAI describes them as “remarkably capable, always-on agents built to handle everything.” The technical description is more useful than the slogan: each dot runs on GPT-6 Astra, has its own cloud computer, learns from your feedback and can work towards your goals 24/7. Through ChatGPT’s plugins, it connects to over 4,000 apps.

DevDay also brought GPT-6.1 Sol, the collaborative ChatGPT Space, and three Pro tiers at 100, 200 and 500 dollars a month, as Blog du Modérateur details.

One point matters as much as the rest: OpenAI gives no numbers on what a dot succeeds or fails at. No success rate, no independent evaluation. For a product that acts on its own inside your accounts, that is a missing piece of information.

What a dot actually is: a goal, connected apps, rules

It comes down to three moves: you give it a goal, you connect the apps it needs, you set the rules. The example OpenAI gave, relayed by TechCrunch, sets the tone: a scientist has her dot rerun an analysis as experimental data arrives.

Custom Rules are the real safety mechanism. According to OpenAI’s documentation, every supported action can be set to one of four behaviours: take action without asking, take action if pre-approved, ask before taking action, or hand off to you.

Three limits are stated plainly in OpenAI’s safety FAQ: your rules cannot override the built-in guardrails, a dot’s research tools cannot send messages to other people, and its context retains no credentials, images or screenshots.

The sentence to keep is OpenAI’s own: a dot “can make mistakes, including when following your rules.” Rules reduce the risk. They do not remove it.

The detail that changes everything: Europe is out of the launch

The availability line leaves no room for doubt: dots are rolling out in ChatGPT to Pro users “in markets excluding the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the UK.” Business Premium subscribers get them across all supported ChatGPT regions, and MIXED News describes an Enterprise beta that is disabled by default.

In practice: a Pro plan paid for in France, Belgium or Switzerland does not give you dots; a Business Premium account does. Dots are restricted to users aged 18 and over, and the rollout is gradual.

OpenAI gave neither a reason nor a date for Europe. That silence is what makes the episode interesting: we do not know whether the company is blocked by a specific obligation or simply prefers to start where the regulatory risk looks lowest.

Dots, Muse, Siri AI: three agents Europe does not have

This is not an isolated case. Trending Topics lines up three consumer agent launches in a matter of weeks, all unavailable in Europe.

Meta’s Muse. Shipped in the United States on September 8, 2026, in Canada on September 18. Neither in the European Union nor in the UK, and no date published.

Apple’s Siri AI. The new assistant works on Mac and Vision Pro, but not on iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch in the EU. Apple invokes the interoperability requirements of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which it says would force it to open very broad access to its users’ personal data. The Commission hands the responsibility back: its spokesperson Thomas Regnier said, as reported by GenerationNT, that the decision “is Apple’s and Apple’s only.”

OpenAI’s dots. European Pro subscribers excluded, with no public justification.

Three different official reasons — or none at all. The common thread lies elsewhere: Europe is no longer a launch market for personal agents, it is becoming a second-wave market.

GDPR, AI Act, DSA, DMA: what the texts actually say

It is tempting to conclude that “Europe bans agents.” The texts do not say that.

The AI Act. Its transparency obligations, in Article 50, have applied since August 2, 2026, the European Commission confirms: tell users they are interacting with an AI unless it is obvious, mark generated content in a machine-readable format, clearly disclose deepfakes. Fines up to 15 million euros or 3% of worldwide turnover. Nothing there bans an agent that runs continuously. Europe even loosened its own timetable: per Gibson Dunn, the Digital Omnibus agreement pushed high-risk obligations back to December 2, 2027 for Annex III, and August 2, 2028 for Annex I.

The DSA. On August 31, 2026, the Commission designated ChatGPT a very large online search engine, Search Engine Journal reports: OpenAI declared 159.1 million average monthly users for ChatGPT search in the EU over the six months to March 31, 2026. That triggers a systemic risk assessment, an annual independent audit and data sharing with the Commission.

The GDPR. An agent that reads your inbox processes personal data — yours and your correspondents’. That requires a legal basis and a defined purpose. This is Trending Topics’ analysis; no authority has published a decision on dots to date.

The DMA. It only targets companies designated as gatekeepers. Apple for iOS, yes; OpenAI for ChatGPT, no.

Our reading of this block: none of the four texts bans an always-on agent. They require you to say what the tool does, document the risks and avoid locking down an ecosystem. The cost is real, but calling it a ban would be wrong.

What a student in Europe can use today

The September 29 exclusion covers dots, not ChatGPT: the rest of your plan works as before. And there is still plenty to do agentic work with.

Claude. Anthropic lists France among its supported countries. Claude Code is a coding agent that runs in your terminal, on your machine — a very different model of autonomy from an agent hosted in the vendor’s cloud.

Mistral Vibe. The French assistant, formerly Le Chat, runs remote agents in the cloud, showing file diffs and tool calls while they work. Its Work mode, connected to email and calendar, requires explicit approval before any sensitive action.

What they have in common: you can see what the agent is doing while it does it. That is exactly what you give up with an agent that works while you sleep.

Handing your account keys to an agent: the checklist first

1. Which accounts am I really connecting? Every connection adds a blast radius. The minimum, not everything on offer.
2. What is it allowed to do on its own? The sensible setting is “ask before taking action” for anything that leaves your machine: sending, publishing, paying, deleting.
3. Can I review it afterwards? A readable action log is the only way to understand what happened if something goes wrong.
4. What happens to other people’s data? Your classmates’ emails, a group project’s notes, an internship report under NDA: that data is not yours, and an agent that reaches it commits you.
5. Is the tool allowed by my institution? Connecting it to your university’s portal or mail system can breach its IT policy.
6. How do I stop it? Find the pause button, the app-access revocation and the context deletion.
7. What will I never hand over? Passwords, ID documents, health data, graded work in progress.

In late September, agents attributed to OpenAI probed public and university websites, going beyond what they had been asked — we covered it here. An agent acts in your name, and what it does lands in the other side’s access logs.

Our reading

The European hole in the dots map is not the scandal of the month, but it is not a footnote either: personal agents ship elsewhere first, and Europe discovers them after an unquantified delay.

The “regulation kills innovation” story still does not hold up. The EU itself pushed its heaviest obligations back by more than a year, OpenAI invoked no text at all, and two of its competitors already offer agents in France. Commercial caution is the likeliest explanation.

That leaves the substance. An always-on agent shifts the question from “does the AI write well?” to “do I know what it did?” The subject becomes traceability of actions. And an announcement with no reliability figures at all is a good reason to wait and see.

FAQ

Does a ChatGPT Pro plan bought in Europe give access to dots?

No. OpenAI’s announcement explicitly excludes the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK for Pro subscribers. Only Business Premium accounts get them, and Enterprise accounts through a beta an admin has to enable.

Can you get around the exclusion with a VPN?

Bad idea: you breach the terms of use, you risk having your account suspended, and you lose any recourse if an agent acting in your name causes a problem. The honest answer is to wait.

Can a dot write my assignment while I sleep?

Technically, an agent can produce text continuously. But handing in work written by an AI still counts as plagiarism at almost every institution. Check your own institution’s AI policy before any graded work, and keep the AI on the coaching side: questions, review, verification.

Does this affect high-school students?

No, OpenAI restricts dots to users aged 18 and over. And even once you are of age, connecting an agent to your school email means checking your institution’s IT policy first.

Does Europe ban AI agents?

No. The AI Act requires disclosure that you are talking to an AI and machine-readable marking of generated content; the DSA imposes a risk assessment and an annual audit on ChatGPT; the DMA only targets gatekeepers. None of these texts bans an agent that works continuously.

Further reading

• AI agents: OpenAI bots probed public and university sites: what happens when an agent goes beyond its instructions.
• From IDE to ADE: coding with AI agents in 2026: the ways to work with a coding agent, and their risks.
• New AI models in 2026: which one should you study with?: the full picture of what is actually available in Europe.
• The securite-app-vibe skill: a prioritized audit of exposed secrets, authentication and access.