OpenAI's AI agents need to catch up: DevDay and the rumored Aeon

OpenAI's annual DevDay 2026 takes place on Tuesday, and the company that popularized the modern generative AI chatbot now trails in one of the industry's most active categories: continuously running AI agents for consumers. According to The Verge, OpenAI will use the event to try to retake the lead, with rumors pointing to a new agent platform called Aeon.

If it arrives, Aeon would be OpenAI's answer to Meta's Muse, SpaceX's Grok Bot and the open-source OpenClaw. Agents that book travel, buy groceries or schedule appointments have been an industry goal for years, but crossed into practical use only late last year, with OpenClaw.

The field is already crowded

OpenAI's main rival is probably Meta. Muse, released earlier this month, has topped the App Store charts and reached 600,000 daily active users in the US, according to Apptopia. Early reviews call it useful but slightly creepy.

Instinct has drawn attention for its ease of use, including chatting with the agent over iMessage and other messaging apps, while Google's Gemini Spark runs around the clock and connects to more than 30 external services, among them Dropbox, Uber and Spotify.

What a winning agent needs

The Verge notes that beating the field would require combining features now spread across platforms: the usefulness of OpenClaw, the low cost and easy setup of Muse, and the conversational simplicity of Instinct. It would also have to solve the security problems that have dogged agents since OpenClaw's rise.

Those risks are concrete. At least one known and now patched vulnerability let attackers take control of user accounts, and some users complained that Muse disclosed a home address without permission and read private messages. autonomy remains the central concern.

OpenAI's position before DevDay

Little is known about Aeon. What is known is that OpenAI employs Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, whose expertise is expected to be part of the effort. The company has raised expectations for DevDay itself: president Greg Brockman said at a press briefing this month that "it's not unreasonable to feel that we are now in the AGI era", referring to the new frontier model GPT-6 Astra, which would likely underpin any agent launch.

On integration, OpenAI still starts behind. Muse plugs into Meta services used by billions of people, while Gemini Spark connects to Google's enterprise and personal ecosystem. Aeon may be only one of several announcements; other rumors cover the hardware project with former Apple designer Jony Ive and a possible GPT-6 update, under the pressure of an upcoming IPO.