Grok Bot vs ChatGPT Dot

The short version: Grok Bot and ChatGPT’s Dot are both AI agents you can throw a pile of unrelated jobs at and let them sort it out. The difference is how they sort it. Grok Bot’s new starred Bot keeps everything in one chat and passes work to your other Bots. Dot gives each task its own conversation. Grok Bot starts at $30 a month and every conversation draws on your usage. Dot needs ChatGPT Pro at $100 or more, but talking to it is free of your limits. I use both. Pick by how you like to work, not by which one is smarter.

Two weeks ago the two biggest always-on agents looked alike, and then they went different ways. OpenAI launched dots on 29 September. Two days later, on the evening of 1 October, a new chat appeared at the top of my Grok Bot app. It was labelled plain “Grok Bot”, had a star next to it, and opened with this:

“Hey! I’m Grok Bot. I’m new here. I’m here to be your primary bot. I can manage your other bots. Task me with anything. I’ll make sure it gets to the right bot.”

A minute later, before I had asked it for anything, it told me it was checking my calendar and a couple of live threads.

I have been using both since. This is how they compare for a regular person, with what I saw on my own accounts and what each company’s documentation says.

What is the Grok Bot that runs your other Bots?

Grok Bot, from SpaceXAI, lets you build a team of agents. Each one, called a Bot, has its own job and keeps working after you close the app. My first Grok Bot test in August covers how that works.

The new piece is that starred chat, which SpaceXAI calls your primary Bot. The Grok Bot changelog lists it in version 0.66.0 on 2 October: it “will now spot work it can take off your plate and offer to handle it.” You talk to it, and it decides whether to do the job itself or hand it to another Bot.

That hand-off is a message from one Bot to another. The receiving Bot wakes up, does the work and replies later. Each Bot keeps its own conversation, but they all share one cloud computer, including its browser and any websites you are signed into. SpaceXAI’s security docs say not to treat separate Bots as a security wall.

In practice I have not needed the hand-offs. I can tell it to create a Bot or delegate to one, but so far it has handled everything I gave it on its own.

How is ChatGPT’s Dot different?

Dot is OpenAI’s version, covered in detail in our guide to ChatGPT dots. It lives in its own chat inside ChatGPT, runs on GPT-6 Astra and has its own cloud computer. OpenAI’s name for your first one is, confusingly, your “primary dot”.

You only get one dot for now, though OpenAI’s getting-started guide says more are coming, so there is no team for it to manage yet. Instead, Dot splits your work up: “Each task has its own conversation and doesn’t automatically receive every conversation you’ve had with your dot.” You can follow them in your dot’s profile under In progress, Scheduled and Completed.

The differences that matter, side by side

	Grok Bot (starred Bot)	ChatGPT Dot
Where you talk to it	One continuous chat	Its own chat, with a separate conversation per task
Manages other agents	Yes, hands work to your other Bots	No, one dot per account for now
Does chatting use your limits?	Yes, from one weekly pool	No. Tasks it starts in Codex or ChatGPT Work do count
Starts work on its own	Yes, it suggests jobs it spotted	Proactive research with read-only tools
Model	Picks per task, including other companies’ models	GPT-6 Astra
Cheapest way in	$30 a month for new subscribers (Premium on The X Subscription)	ChatGPT Pro, from $100 a month (not in the EU/EEA, UK or Switzerland)

What I like most about both is rapid-fire work. I can unload a dozen unrelated jobs, projects and half-formed ideas in a row and not organise any of them first. Each agent does the sorting. That is the real shift from a chatbot, where you are the one keeping track. If that difference is new to you, read AI agents vs chatbots first.

One chat or many: the biggest day-to-day difference

With Grok Bot, everything stays in the same chat. I tested this by switching to a completely unrelated topic, and it carried on in the same thread.

The upside is that I never have to hunt through side chats. I open one conversation and type. The downside is that if I want to keep my topics apart, I can’t yet. SpaceXAI’s chat documentation suggests starting a thread or a new Bot by hand when a conversation turns into a different long-running job. So you end up doing some of the sorting yourself.

Dot goes the other way. Every new task gets its own session, so I can talk about ten different things without them blurring together in one context window. A context window is how much of the conversation the AI can hold in mind at once. When it fills with unrelated topics, answers get muddier.

If you think out loud in one long stream, Grok Bot will feel natural. If you like tidy folders, Dot will.

Which one eats into your usage?

This is Dot’s clearest advantage. OpenAI’s dots announcement says conversations with your dot don’t count toward your ChatGPT usage limits. Work it starts in Codex or ChatGPT Work does count.

Grok Bot has no such exemption. On The X Subscription, launched 12 October, Grok Bot comes with Premium and up and draws from one weekly pool shared with Grok and Cursor. The one carve-out SpaceXAI has announced is that the starred Bot’s suggestions, the jobs it offers to take on, don’t count against your usage.

Even so, I have been getting far more done per week out of Grok Bot than I used to, on tasks that previously ate more of my allowance. I can’t tell you why. It could be efficiency, or the model change below. The app is also changing fast: SpaceXAI shipped at least eight updates between 29 September and 11 October, taking it to version 0.70.2.

Why Grok Bot got so much better this month

Over the last two weeks Grok Bot has been easy to pick up, good at following directions and very fast. The likely reason is a change Elon Musk announced on 7 October.

He posted on X: “Going forward, @SpaceX will use the best back end model for any given task, including Claude Opus 5.5, MidJourney, Suno and other leading APIs. Whatever is most likely to give you the best outcome.”

So Grok Bot no longer runs only on Grok. A hard reasoning job may go to Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5, an image to Midjourney, a song to Suno. Cursor’s help page on which models power Grok Bot confirms it picks per task and adds two things a beginner should know. There is no model picker. And Grok Bot does not show which model handled a request.

The boost I noticed lines up with the change, but because the model is hidden, nobody outside SpaceXAI can confirm it.

It also has a privacy side. Some of what you send Grok Bot may now be processed by another company. Cursor’s help page says Grok Bot only uses providers on a published sub-processor list. If you handle anything sensitive, check that list before you hand it over.

What goes wrong with both?

The same thing, in my experience. Every agent I use, Dot and Grok Bot included, sometimes gets its browser stuck on a page and goes round in a loop. It keeps trying the same step until it resets itself.

That Stop button has saved me more than once. One more tip from our Dot guide applies to both: set sending, posting and buying to “ask first” until you trust it. And since 11 October, before anything it can’t undo, such as sending, posting, buying or deleting, Grok Bot checks that the go-ahead came from your own messages.

Dot has a catch of its own if you let it use your computer. With local access switched on, it can start Codex tasks on your machine, and Codex, OpenAI’s coding app, stores every chat and sub-agent on your disk. On my Mac it was using 6.2 GB, and it grows fastest with video work, which is most of what I have been giving it lately. If your laptop is short on space, check Settings, then Storage, in the Codex app, where you can clear out old chats.

Which should a beginner pick?

My verdict, after two weeks with both:

• Pick Grok Bot if you want the cheaper way in, like typing everything into one place, and want an agent that goes looking for work. At $30 a month you also get Grok and Cursor.
• Pick Dot if you already pay for ChatGPT Pro, juggle many separate projects, or talk to your agent all day and don’t want that eating your limits.
• Pick neither yet if a $20 chatbot already covers what you do. Both are built for people with more running than they can track.

I like both. Grok Bot is aiming bigger, with one Bot running a team, while Dot keeps things tidier by giving each task its own conversation.

Your own head still needs organising

An agent keeps its own work tidy, but your priorities are still up to you. When dozens of projects and experiments are running at once, the agent will remember each task, but you still have to know what you want, what matters this week and what to drop.

For me that job happens on paper, or the e-ink version of it. I handwrite to keep my thinking straight, and I wrote up the system in my paper-and-AI setup. The agents do the tasks, and I decide which ones are worth doing.

Common questions

Is the starred Grok Bot an extra cost?
No. It comes with Grok Bot on any plan that includes it, starting with Premium at $30 a month. The free trial, a usage credit with a 7-day window, also covers it.

Can Dot manage other dots?
Not yet. You get one dot with Pro or a Business Premium seat (Enterprise workspaces can try a beta), so there is nothing for it to manage.

Can I choose which model Grok Bot uses?
No. Cursor’s help page says there is no model picker and Grok Bot doesn’t show which model handled a request. It may use Grok or another company’s model, such as Claude Opus 5.5.

Can I keep topics separate in Grok Bot?
Not automatically. Everything goes into one chat. You can start a thread or create a separate Bot by hand for a long-running job.

Do I need to know how to code?
No. You set up and use both by typing in plain English. Grok Bot happens to come bundled with Cursor, a coding tool, but you never have to open it.

References

• Grok Bot changelog (primary Bot in v0.66.0, 2 October 2026; v0.70.2, 11 October 2026)
• SpaceXAI, Grok Bot chat and collaboration docs (hand-offs and threads)
• SpaceXAI, Grok Bot approvals, security and privacy docs (shared computer, Bots are not a security boundary)
• Cursor, Grok Bot access and plans (weekly pool, free trial, checked 15 October 2026)
• @bot on X, primary Bot announcement (1 October 2026)
• SpaceXAI, Introducing The X Subscription (12 October 2026)
• Cursor, which AI models power Grok Bot (checked 15 October 2026)
• Elon Musk on X, Grok Bot model routing (7 October 2026)
• OpenAI, Introducing dots (29 September 2026)
• OpenAI Help Center, Getting started with your dot (checked 15 October 2026)
• My own Grok Bot and ChatGPT accounts, 1 to 15 October 2026.

Related guides

• Grok Bot: I Tested It on Real Work: my first build, and current pricing.
• ChatGPT Dots: What They Do: plans, controls and who should pay.
• AI Agents Talking to Each Other: what happens when one agent hands work to another.
• The Everyday AI Agent Team: jobs worth giving an agent.
• Claude Opus 5.5: one of the models Grok Bot now borrows.
• AI Agents vs Chatbots Explained: why an agent keeps working when you leave.
• I Built a Paper System With AI: keeping your own thinking organised offline.