Paying ChatGPT OpenAI users can now ask the AI assistant to schedule reminders or recurring requests. The modern beta feature, called tasks, will begin rolling out to ChatGPT Plus, Team and Pro users worldwide this week.
With Tasks, users can set plain reminders using ChatGPT, such as “Remind me when my passport expires in six months,” and the AI assistant will send a push notification on any platform where you have Tasks enabled. Users can now also set recurring requests to ChatGPT, such as “Every Friday, give me a weekend plan based on my location and weather forecast” or “Give me updates every day at 7 a.m.”
The modern tasks feature appears to be OpenAI’s first step toward artificial intelligence models that can operate with some degree of independence, also known as AI agents. That’s according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman The year 2025 will be important for AI agentseven claiming they will “join the workforce” this year. Tasks is a fairly restricted version of an agent system, but it allows users to set reminders using ChatGPT, a handy feature that most people have come to expect from assistants like Siri and Alexa. Scheduled information requests are more unique and demonstrate modern capabilities that previous digital assistants did not have.
Users can access the tasks by selecting “4o with scheduled tasks” from the drop-down menu in ChatGPT. From there, they can send a message to ChatGPT telling the AI assistant what reminder or action they want to create. At times, OpenAI claims that ChatGPT can suggest specific tasks based on chats. Users can set and manage tasks by talking to the AI assistant on any platform or via a dedicated task manager tab that is only available in the web app.
With the ChatGPT Tasks feature, you can now browse the internet on a set schedule, but it won’t perform constant background searches or make purchases. For example, you can instruct ChatGPT to check the availability of concert tickets once a month to see your favorite artist in your area, but you cannot instruct the AI assistant to notify you when tickets are released, nor will ChatGPT be able to purchase tickets for you. That said, this is a step towards these systems.
OpenAI says it is using this beta period to learn more about how people employ Tasks before making the feature widely available on its mobile app and free ChatGPT tier. The company says that with this beta version, you won’t be able to set tasks in advanced voice mode.
While AI assistants based on vast language models have pushed the boundaries of what computers can do, they also struggle with some of the plain tasks that smartphones can perform. Developers of OpenAI, Google, and other AI models have had to come up with clever workarounds to get their assistants to set timers and create reminders. While the stakes for these tasks are relatively low, OpenAI wants ChatGPT to perform much more intricate tasks in the future.
OpenAI is preparing to release more advanced agent systems, including an agent called Operator that can write code and book travel. We believe this system could be rolled out in the next few weeks Bloomberg.
More potential problems arise with more advanced agent systems. The tasks show a fairly controlled selection of agent capabilities, but OpenAI’s security features may be tested in the coming months as more autonomous AI systems are deployed.