Paying users of OpenAI’s ChatGPT can now ask the AI assistant to schedule reminders or recurring requests. The new beta feature, called tasks, will start rolling out to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro users around the globe this week.
With tasks, users can set simple reminders with ChatGPT such as, “Remind me when my passport expires in six months,” and the AI assistant will follow up with a push notification on whatever platform you have tasks enabled. Users can also now set recurring requests to ChatGPT, such as, “Every Friday, give me a weekend plan based on my location and the weather forecast,” or “Give me a news briefing everyday at 7 am.”
The new task feature appears to be OpenAI’s first step into AI models that can act somewhat independently, also known as AI agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that 2025 will be big for AI agents, even claiming they will “join the workforce” this year. Tasks is a fairly limited version of an agentic system, but it allows users to set reminders with ChatGPT, a practical feature most people have come to expect from assistants like Siri and Alexa. The scheduled information requests are more unique, showing new capabilities that previous digital assistants were not capable of.
Users can access tasks by selecting “4o with scheduled tasks” from a dropdown menu in ChatGPT. From there, they can send ChatGPT a message telling the AI assistant what reminder or action they want to create. At times, OpenAI says ChatGPT may suggest certain tasks based on chats. Users can set and manage tasks by chatting with the AI assistant on any platform, or through a dedicated tasks manager tab that’s only available on the web app.
Through the tasks feature, ChatGPT can now browse the web on a set schedule, but it will not run continuous searches in the background or make purchases. For example, you could instruct ChatGPT to check for concert tickets to see your favorite artist in your area once a month, but you can neither tell the AI assistant to alert you the moment the tickets go live, nor can ChatGPT buy tickets for you. That said, it’s a step toward those systems.
OpenAI says it’s using this beta period to learn more about how people use tasks before it makes the feature broadly available on its mobile app and free tier of ChatGPT. For this beta launch, the company says you can’t set tasks through Advanced Voice Mode.
While AI assistants based on large language models have pushed the limits of what computers can do, they also struggle with some simple tasks that smartphones are capable of. OpenAI, Google, and other AI model developers have had to come up with clever workarounds to get their assistants to set timers and create reminders. While these tasks are relatively low stakes, OpenAI wants ChatGPT to do much more complicated tasks moving forward.
OpenAI is gearing up to release more advanced agentic systems, including an agent reportedly called Operator that can write code and book travel. That system could be coming in the next few weeks, according to Bloomberg.
With more advanced agentic systems comes more potential problems. Tasks shows a fairly controlled selection of agentic abilities, but OpenAI’s safeguards may be tested in the coming months as it rolls out more independent AI systems.
