“I think like having to set up and fiddle with your loops and, you know, figuring that out is something that, you know, maybe people got excited about, but I don't think this is the way that it's going to work. I think the way that it's going to work is how we're positioning and what we're shipping with dots, where you have an incredibly smart agent that works 24/7, understands your goals, understands your preferences, learns from feedback. And it's like, … not perfect. I will learn very much from making this available to our pro users. But over time, you just want … system that learns from what you want to achieve.”
Thibault Sottiaux, Head of Codex. Leads the team that builds the product he describes, so he speaks from inside it; OpenAI sells Codex.
OpenAI sells AI or agent tools or services, so it has a reason to publish flattering numbers about AI. The passage stays in the archive; read it with that in mind.
How this was checked
Not yet checked by an independent second reader. The wording, speaker and date come from the source linked above; treat it as a lead until it is confirmed.
Two whisper passes of the original audio agree on every content word quoted: pass 1 is a full-audio transcription, pass 2 a separate re-cut clip with 5 seconds of margin (the prepared 3:45 whisper file, a third pass, also covers the first two sentences). Spoken filler ('you know', 'like') that either pass heard is kept, because whisper tends to drop filler; every other disagreement is marked with …. Normalization: punctuation, and the spelling of product and company names the passes heard as sound-alikes (none beyond punctuation; 'we launch this like not perfect' / 'what we launched is' is cut, as is 'a'/'this' before 'system'). OpenAI sells ChatGPT, Codex and Dots. Second reader (2026-11-08): unreachable. Reviewer saw: Partly checked. Whisper at about 03:19 matches the first part exactly, from 'I think like having to set up and fiddle with your loops' through 'learns from feedback.' The transcript then ends mid-clip. The rest ('And it's like, … not perfect. I will learn very much… system that learns from what you want to achieve.') could not be checked. Whisper's final words do not match the ending. Second reader (2026-11-08): unreachable. Reviewer saw: The transcript ends at 03:41 with '…understands your preferences, learns from feedback.' That text matches the passage's first sentences, with differences only in filler such as 'fiddle with your loops'. The rest ('And it's like, … not perfect. I will learn very much from making this available to our pro users…') is not in the transcript, so I cannot confirm the whole passage.
How to cite this passage
Thibault Sottiaux (OpenAI), “OpenAI's Head of ChatGPT: We're entering a new era of AI (again)”, Lenny's Podcast (YouTube), 2026-10-04, at 03:19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM-C3JqCXBk Archived at https://the-ai-record.com/passages/openai-dots-agent-learns-no-loops-to-configure-2026
Context. Asked for a recent AI use case that impressed him, Sottiaux describes his personal Dots agent warning him of a production outage shortly before the OpenAI DevDay live demo.