What if ChatGPT could do things for you without you even asking -- on a schedule you define? That is exactly what Tasks do.
Tasks let you schedule ChatGPT to perform actions automatically. A daily morning news briefing. A weekly summary of industry trends. A reminder to review your goals every Monday. You set it up once, and ChatGPT handles it on autopilot, delivering results via push notification or email.
Today you will learn how to create, manage, and get the most value from scheduled Tasks.
Tasks are scheduled actions that ChatGPT performs automatically at times you specify. Instead of opening ChatGPT and typing a prompt every morning, you tell it once what you want, set a schedule, and it runs on its own.
Each Task has three components:
- The prompt -- what you want ChatGPT to do (e.g., "Summarize the top 5 AI news stories from today")
- The schedule -- when and how often (e.g., "Every weekday at 7:00 AM")
- The delivery -- how you receive the output (push notification or email)
When a Task runs, ChatGPT processes the prompt, performs any necessary web searches, and sends you the result. You do not need to have ChatGPT open -- it works in the background.
Creating a Task is as simple as asking ChatGPT to do something on a schedule. You can be conversational about it:
- "Remind me every Friday to review my weekly goals"
- "Every Monday morning, give me a summary of what happened in the crypto market last week"
- "On the 1st and 15th of each month, create a list of trending topics in my industry"
ChatGPT will confirm the Task details and ask you to approve before activating it. You can specify:
- Frequency: Daily, weekly, monthly, or custom intervals
- Time: Any time of day in your local timezone
- Days: Specific days of the week (e.g., weekdays only)
Here are some high-value Task ideas:
Morning briefing. A daily digest of news, weather, and your calendar highlights.
Weekly report. Every Friday, a summary of trends in your industry or market.
Content ideas. Weekly brainstorm of blog post or social media content ideas based on trending topics.
Learning prompts. Daily vocabulary words, coding challenges, or study questions on a topic you are learning.
Competitor monitoring. Weekly check on what your competitors are publishing, launching, or announcing.
Tasks are available on Plus and Pro plans only -- they are not available on the free tier.
Here are the current limits:
- Active tasks: You can have up to 10 active Tasks running at any time
- Monthly executions: Plus users get 40 task runs per month. Pro users get 400 task runs per month
- Delivery: Results are delivered via push notification and/or email
If you hit your monthly limit, your Tasks will pause until the next billing cycle. You can prioritize which Tasks matter most by pausing less critical ones.
Managing Tasks. You can view, edit, pause, or delete your Tasks from the Tasks section in ChatGPT settings. Each Task shows its schedule, last run time, and next scheduled run.
Be specific in your prompts. "Give me AI news" is vague. "Summarize the top 5 AI news stories from today, focusing on new product launches and funding rounds, with a one-sentence takeaway for each" gives you much better results.
Combine related requests. Instead of three separate Tasks for news, weather, and calendar, create one "Morning Briefing" Task that covers all three. This saves your monthly execution quota.
Match frequency to value. Not everything needs to be daily. Industry trends change weekly, not hourly. Reserve daily Tasks for things that genuinely change every day.
Review and iterate. After your first few Task outputs, refine the prompt. If the summaries are too long, say "keep each item to 2 sentences." If they miss your industry, add specific keywords or publications to monitor.