OpenAI began rolling out a new feature to ChatGPT on Tuesday that allows users to schedule reminders and actions for the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. The new feature, called Tasks, is currently offered to all paid subscribers of the AI platform and the company has revealed plans to roll it out to the free tier later this year. The feature also appears to be OpenAI’s first step in bringing AI model agency capabilities to its common chatbot.
OpenAI launches tasks feature for ChatGPT
In a series of publications On X (formerly known as Twitter), OpenAI announced Duties, currently available in beta for ChatGPT Plus, Groups, and Professional users. The feature is planned to expand to those on the AI chatbot’s free tier later this year. Currently, the Tasks page can only be accessed through the online version of the platform.
The company said it intends to use the beta period to better understand how people use the feature and refine it before it rolls out to free tier users. Additionally, users cannot use advanced voice mode to set tasks.
ChatGPT web task manager page
Photo credit: OpenAI
Tasks are essentially a scheduling function. Users can go to the ChatGPT website and type a message in the text field or go to the Tasks page via the profile menu to set up a new task. These tasks can be reminders set as one-time on a specific date and time or recurring. Users can also tell the chatbot to perform a task at the scheduled time.
This feature can be used to get a daily news briefing in the morning or a motivational message right before exercise time. Since prompts can be used to set up Tasks, users can simply type a message in plain language like “Send me a summary of the day’s most important tech news at 7:30 pm Monday to Friday” and the schedule will be set. .
While the scheduling part of the feature is not that innovative (every smartphone watch app allows users to set reminders), what is quite interesting is the “taking actions” at a future time. While this is not technically an agency feature, as no action is taken outside of the chatbot platform, it still requires the AI to use memory and multi-step execution to generate text or images at any given time. These capabilities in combination are often associated with AI agents.
OpenAI has been rumored to be working on its first AI agent, called Operator, for quite some time, and Duties may be the first step towards that goal.
