Late Friday, October 16, OpenAI updated the ChatGPT app on iOS and iPadOS with a home-screen widget for your Dot and new Shortcuts actions to control it. The small widget simply shows your Dot's avatar and tapping it opens the Dot's message thread — or, if you toggle on "Show shortcut button" when editing it, it adds messaging and voice buttons beneath the avatar.

The update also adds a trio of Shortcuts actions to message, dictate to, or call your Dot, each taking two parameters: the name of your Dot and how you want to communicate with it. Users can currently have only one Dot, so a parameter that opens a list of Dots strongly suggests multiple Dots are on the horizon, something OpenAI telegraphed at DevDay, MacStories notes.

The widget gives Dots — OpenAI's always-on agents, launched in September for a limited set of paid plans — a place on the iPhone home screen, shortening the gap between an ongoing task and checking in on it. It adds no new task capability, and users must initiate the voice calls themselves.