ChatGPT maker OpenAI today launched "dots" — AI agents with disarmingly cute avatars that can be asked to perform a range of tasks, Axios' Ina Fried reports.

👾 Powered by GPT-6 Astra, dots can work across connected apps, Codex and ChatGPT Work to do research, analyze data, prepare documents and build software.

• They can work in the background and reach out when they need more input. Users can also set boundaries around dots' actions.
• Dots are available to OpenAI's Pro, Business and Enterprise users, with one dot per user to start.

OpenAI says in an announcement: "Your dot is always within reach, whether it is through ChatGPT, Slack, or Teams."

• "You can ask questions, explore ideas, and give feedback along the way; or you can simply hop on a voice call when you need to talk something out." (Go deeper.)

🤝 OpenAI says it envisions teams of dots eventually working together.

• CEO Sam Altman said at a developer event today: "This is the real deal version of AI we've always imagined."

🖼️ The big picture: OpenAI's dots will compete with a growing crop of consumer AI assistants used to book travel, cancel subscriptions and more, including Meta's Muse agent.

• Meta dove headfirst into the consumer market, launching Muse widely to its massive audience. The app topped the download charts early on.
• OpenAI is targeting high-end subscribers, mostly developers — at least for now.

Read the announcement ... Go deeper.

Roughly 11 million American workers might need to change jobs over the next decade as the economy adapts to the AI era, Axios' Emily Peck writes from a new McKinsey Global Institute estimate.

🧑‍🔧 By the numbers: About 7% of current employees might need to shift occupations, the model found.

• Many who don't switch jobs will still see their work transformed by AI: About 70% of U.S. workers will face some level of role reinvention.

Read the report.

1. 🏛️ Former special counsel Jack Smith defended his prosecutions of President Trump and his investigative tactics, pushing back in a Senate hearing today against Republican efforts to paint him and his team as partisan operators. Go deeper.
2. 💍 Smart ring maker Oura delayed an IPO that had been expected to raise up to $2.2 billion, citing "market conditions." More from Dan Primack.
3. 👩‍💼 Fast Company is launching a private WhatsApp community for women balancing senior-level careers and motherhood, Axios' Kerry Flynn reports exclusively. Go deeper.

Maritime experts in Nantucket are inspecting weathered wooden beams exposed by last weekend's powerful nor'easter — possibly the remnants of a 19th-century shipwreck.

• The Egan Maritime Institute is surveying the site and working with state archaeologists to determine the wreckage's origins.

🌊 The splintered timbers, fastened together by rusted iron, emerged near an area where remains believed to be from the Warren Sawyer have been found before.

• That ship ran aground in 1884 while carrying cotton and scrap iron from New Orleans to Boston.

Go deeper.