OpenAI DevDay 2026: The biggest news and announcements

It’s OpenAI’s turn in the fall tech events calendar. The company is hosting its annual DevDay on September 29th in San Francisco, and during a live keynote featuring CEO Sam Altman, it revealed several notable updates, including Dots , its AI agent product that rivals Meta’s recently-launched Muse. However, unlike Muse, which is available for free, Dots will initially be available to paid subscribers of ChatGPT Pro, Business Premium, and Enterprise. The company also revealed its GPT-6.1 Sol model, said that ChatGPT now has 1.2 billion users per week , and announced a new ChatGPT Pro plan that costs $500 per month .

DevDay is happening at a tumultuous moment for OpenAI. The AI industry has been rocked by revelations of agents hacking outside companies, including OpenAI’s own models, which breached Hugging Face earlier this year. The hacks kicked off a broader conversation about a potential AI development slowdown .

You can follow all of our coverage of DevDay 2026 right here.

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ChatGPT now has 1.2 billion weekly users, OpenAI says.

That’s up from the 1 billion weekly users milestone ChatGPT surpassed in July .

OpenAI is adding a $500 / month ChatGPT Pro tier.

The new plan includes the company’s highest usage limits and access to its Ultrafast mode , which allows GPT-6 Astra to deliver faster responses across its services, including ChatGPT Work and Codex. At the same time, OpenAI reopened its $200 / month tier with new usage limits.

OpenAI launches Dots, its Muse competitor

OpenAI is responding to Meta’s buzzy Muse AI with agentic helpers of its own: Dots. During its DevDay keynote on Tuesday, OpenAI announced that Dots will serve as always-on AI assistants that can “do nearly anything” across connected apps in the background while learning your preferences over time.

The company’s capable GPT-6 Astra model powers Dots, which use their own cloud computer to access a web browser and more than 4,000 supported apps. You can interact with a Dot through a text-message-like interface that’s similar to the one offered by Muse , as well as hop on a voice call with it from ChatGPT on the web, desktop, or mobile. Dots can also connect to Microsoft Teams and Slack, where they will carry over the context from your sessions on other apps and devices. It will soon be able to talk to you over text message as well.

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Protesters gather at OpenAI’s DevDay

Photo by Hayden Field / The Verge

On Tuesday, OpenAI’s annual DevDay event began with protests, flyers, and chants. “Sam Altman, get off it, put people over profit,” said a group of protesters marching in a circle in front of a series of signs that spelled out “PEOPLE OVER PROFIT.”

More than a dozen organizations came together to sponsor a rally outside the entrance to the event venue at San Francisco’s Fort Mason, including Bay Resistance, Tech Workers Coalition, Service Employees International Union, San Francisco Rising, and the San Francisco Labor Council. A large orange sign read “Drop the ICE contract.” Multiple people dressed in cardboard robot costumes waved cardboard scythes around. Signs read “No killer robots for ICE,” “People over AI,” “Where is your moral codex?” and “No climate destruction.”

OpenAI’s AI agents need to catch up

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

OpenAI popularized the modern generative AI chatbot, but as its 2026 DevDay event approaches, it’s fallen behind in one of the industry’s hottest categories: continuously running, consumer-facing AI agents. On Tuesday, it will likely try to capture the lead in that race. Rumors abound that OpenAI will release its own AI agent, dubbed Aeon — its answer to Meta’s Muse, SpaceX’s Grok Bot, OpenClaw, and many more.

Aeon could have a shot at success, but to beat the competition, it would need to pull together the best features of several different agent platforms. The ideal system would be as useful as the open-source OpenClaw, as cheap and easy to set up as Meta’s Muse, and as simple to chat with as the up-and-coming Instinct. Conversely, it would aim to solve the serious security risks that have plagued agents since the rise of OpenClaw and only continued with Muse.

OpenAI’s DevDay 2026 has a date.

Mark your calendars for September 29th. Last year the company used the event to launch “apps” inside ChatGPT.