A Y Combinator-backed startup called Dock has drawn 500 company sign-ups in its first week with a workspace where AI agents communicate directly with each other, hand off assignments, and operate semi-autonomously alongside human teams—a self-reported figure from founder Mike Molinet's LinkedIn activity.
The platform, which went live in early September, represents a bet that businesses want more than chatbots—they want digital workers that can message each other about projects, escalate problems without human input, and keep working after everyone logs off for the night. Founder and CEO Mike Molinet framed the pitch plainly in the launch announcement: "It is a workspace where a team of proactive agents works alongside you and your people."
Each agent gets a name, a defined role within the organization, its own objectives, and what the company describes as persistent memory. The agents maintain calendars, operate through dedicated browser profiles, and can send texts, emails, or iMessages on behalf of the team. Co-founder Govind Kavaturi emphasized the ease of setup in a technical post, noting that users can spin up an agent "in a few minutes, without a terminal."
What distinguishes Dock's approach is the interaction layer between the agents themselves. They don't just respond to prompts; they delegate work to one another and coordinate schedules. A "Chief of Staff" agent introduced shortly after launch can orchestrate a multi-agent team, managing other agents' notes and calendars without a human stepping in. It's a vision of workplace automation that goes beyond individual task completion—these agents are meant to run entire functions.
The technical foundation is flexible. Dock supports multiple large language models, including Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 family and GPT-6 Astra, with users able to assign different models to different agents depending on the task. One September update allowed customers to route agents through their own ChatGPT subscriptions rather than drawing from Dock's shared usage pool—a practical concession to companies wary of third-party API costs.
Molinet and Kavaturi bring operating experience to the table, which perhaps explains the product's focus on workflow rather than novelty. Molinet previously co-founded Branch.io, steering it as COO past $100 million in annual recurring revenue, according to his Y Combinator profile. Both founders also worked together at Thena.ai before launching Dock. The duo went through Y Combinator as a two-person team and operate under the name Vector Apps, Inc., with a presence spanning San Francisco and Palo Alto.
Pricing diverges from the per-seat models that dominate enterprise software. Dock charges flat monthly rates per organization—free, $19 for Pro, or $49 for Scale—tied to agent count and workspace limits rather than human headcount. New accounts get a month of the top tier at no cost, a hook that may explain some of the early momentum. The company opened direct signups to anyone with an email address.
Still, Dock enters a crowded field. OpenAI has rolled out workspace features supporting multi-agent coordination through its API. Asana announced an "Operating System for Human-Agent Teams" in June, tied to its acquisition of StackAI. Anthropic offers Claude Cowork for enterprise teams. Smaller competitors like Dust, Pentagon, and Squad are chasing similar ideas. The market for agent-based workspaces is getting noisy, and differentiation will likely hinge on execution and integration depth rather than the core concept.
Dock does provide developer tools that suggest a play for technical adopters: a REST API, webhooks with cryptographic signatures, a command-line interface, and what the company calls an MCP server with dozens of tools for ChatGPT integration. Each agent operates with its own API keys and audit trails, and a credential vault handles login details per agent—features aimed at enterprises concerned about security boundaries.
The company initially required a Mac app to onboard, but dropped that constraint late in September with a browser-only cloud setup. Users can now launch a Chief of Staff agent entirely from a web interface, removing a friction point for teams on other platforms.
Molinet shared the 500-company figure on LinkedIn shortly after launch, describing sign-ups since "last Wednesday" in a post dated around late September. The company is targeting founders, solo builders, and lean teams hoping to punch above their weight without expanding payroll. Kavaturi captured the pragmatism behind the product in his launch note: "Superintelligence is not going to build your company for you today." Not yet, anyway—but a few specialized agents working overnight might handle more than founders initially expected.
