OpenAI Develops New Dots Background AI Agent
The project, led by former Multi founder Alexander Embiricos, aims to build autonomous agents that interact with user software.
Updated on Oct. 24, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence
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Former Multi startup founder Alexander Embiricos is currently leading the development of Dots, an AI agent project at OpenAI. This research-stage effort follows OpenAI's 2024 acquisition of Multi, a collaboration platform developer.
Why it matters
The project signals OpenAI's focus on autonomous agents that run in the background, shifting beyond standard conversational interfaces. This shift incorporates the engineering expertise of the former Multi team, who previously specialized in remote collaboration workflows.
Multi previously operated a platform supporting screen sharing for up to 10 simultaneous users with low-latency performance. Dots is designed to function as an AI agent operating in the background to connect with various user-side applications.
The players
Alexander Embiricos
Product lead for the Dots AI agent who previously co-founded Multi and served as a product lead for OpenAI's Codex.
OpenAI
A developer of large language models and generative AI systems that is increasingly focused on agentic, autonomous software.
Multi
A former startup, previously known as Remotion, that developed collaboration and screen-sharing software before its acquisition.
The details
Dots operates by running in the background, a departure from traditional active-prompt AI models, to facilitate direct connections with user software. This approach leverages experience from the Multi collaboration platform, which utilized screen sharing and customizable keyboard shortcuts to enable synchronized user interaction. The development team, now integrated into OpenAI, is applying this history of workflow-integration tools to build autonomous agentic behavior.
Timeline
June 24, 2024: OpenAI announced the acquisition of the startup Multi.
July 24, 2024: Multi shut down its independent collaboration service.
October 2026: Alexander Embiricos was confirmed as the product lead for the Dots AI project.
The Tech Race
This effort places OpenAI alongside other major firms racing to transition from chatbot interfaces to agentic systems that can operate independently across software environments. It marks a clear departure from the company's prior focus on static coding tools like Codex.
Dots is currently a research project, meaning no public release or consumer application is available. Users should monitor for future OpenAI product announcements regarding background-agent capabilities that integrate directly with existing desktop or web workflows.
The takeaway
OpenAI is scaling its agentic capabilities by leveraging the team that built specialized collaboration software for professional workflows. Watch for upcoming benchmarks or developer previews to see if Dots achieves reliable, background-level integration across typical desktop applications.
Further reading
Explore deeper into ongoing developments in Artificial Intelligence to understand how autonomous agents are evolving.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Economic Times.
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