OpenAI’s Head of ChatGPT: We’re entering a new era of AI (again) | Tibo Sottiaux

Tibo Sottiaux leads ChatGPT and Codex at OpenAI. Under his stewardship, OpenAI has shipped some of its most consequential consumer launches: Codex, ChatGPT Work, and most recently, the new Dots personal agent platform. He joined me at DevDay, hours after his team launched more than 20 new products, to talk about where things are heading.

We discuss:

1. Dots, OpenAI’s new personal AI assistant

2. Why most actions on the internet will soon be taken by agents

3. Why loops, graphs, and fine-tuning agent workflows are a passing phase

4. Which skills are trending up and down in the AI era

5. How Tibo’s Dot warned him about a production outage five minutes before the launch

6. OpenAI’s approach to AI safety

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Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/openais-head-of-chatgpt-were-entering

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Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0

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Where to find Tibo Sottiaux:

• X: https://x.com/thsottiaux

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thibault-sottiaux-27195366

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Tibo Sottiaux

(01:12) How Tibo uses AI in his daily work

(03:10) The vision for always-on AI agents

(06:15) How AI will continue to change work

(07:32) Bringing Codex, ChatGPT, and Dots together

(08:20) The sci-fi inspiration behind the technology

(09:02) Building AI with the community

(10:13) Understanding the Dots structure

(11:34) OpenAI’s open ecosystem and plugin revenue sharing

(13:39) How plugins get discovered and recommended

(14:39) The research behind Dots

(16:20) Where humans will remain valuable

(17:25) Agent fatigue, loneliness, and context switching

(18:55) The pressure to do more with AI

(20:09) An agent that spotted a production outage before a live demo

(21:42) Agent guardrails and connecting multiple devices

(23:25) The skills becoming more valuable in the AI era

(25:56) Advice for people early in their careers

(27:18) How teams build and ship inside OpenAI

(28:59) Autonomy, trust, and learning from mistakes

(30:45) Building for a future where agents dominate internet activity

(32:41) What Tibo has changed his mind about

(33:55) OpenAI’s approach to AI safety and alignment

(36:15) Moving beyond model pickers toward simpler AI

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Referenced:

• OpenAI Dots: https://chatgpt.com/features/dots

• Her on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/70278933

• Star Trek: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028

• Pi: https://pi.ai

• OpenCode: https://opencode.ai

• Notion: https://www.notion.com

• Figma: https://www.figma.com

• OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai

• Peter Steinberger on X: https://x.com/steipete

• Grok Bot: https://x.ai/bot

• Muse: https://muse.ai

• Instinct: https://instinct.com

• Ahmed Ibrahim on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ahmedibrhm

• The Hugging Face incident and the road ahead: https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-incident-and-the-road-ahead

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Recommended book:

• Neuromancer: https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441007465

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.