Geordie test: one Dots agent burned 300K+ tokens in a day with no prompts at all

#What happened

AI agent security and governance firm Geordie has been testing OpenAI's always-on dot since its September launch. In one day, a single dot produced 155 separate activity sequences and consumed more than 300,000 tokens (about 307,000), with no further human interaction. At least 50 of those 155 traces happened within a two-minute period, and most occurred within a couple of hours. The dot had read-only permissions and was not connected to personal apps, email, or Slack. It went into research mode, surveying systems and collecting information into a daily-journal-style entry it updated through the day. The dot spun up subagents without interacting with the user: one checked all the code repositories in a development system under test, while another continuously inventoried the data it found.

#Why it matters

Dots run at least two agents at once: a primary agent that interacts with the user, plus a secondary agent continuously collecting data in the background, and they can spin up subagents for specific tasks. Token costs vary by tier and terms, but Geordie estimates roughly 200,000 Astra-model tokens cost $5 to $10, so a day of unprompted background activity can cost about what you pay for a latte, with no user interaction. Geordie's chief AI officer Hanah-Marie Darley warns users may not be prepared for the background spend, and advises not giving agents personal information you would not send in an email, and not giving them access to real payment cards. Verified October 13, 2026. Source: https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/10/13/openais-dot-assistant-burned-300k-tokens-in-a-day-without-a-single-prompt/5302913