Guides
What are ChatGPT tasks? The short answer, with what changed this year
Tasks are prompts ChatGPT runs later on a schedule or after an app event. They now sit on the Scheduled page, and Free accounts can use them.
ChatGPT tasks are jobs you hand to ChatGPT to run later without you: a reminder at a set time, a recurring piece of work, or a check that tells you when something changes. As of November 2026 OpenAI calls them scheduled tasks, and you manage all of them from a page named Scheduled in the ChatGPT sidebar.
The short version
You ask, ChatGPT runs the prompt on the schedule you gave, and the result arrives as a push notification, an email, or both. OpenAI's own example is "Let me know when my package is delivered." Tasks can run one time or repeat, and some can be set off by an event in a connected app instead of a clock. The full rules are on OpenAI's help page for scheduled tasks in ChatGPT.
Three kinds of task
- Reminders and one-off jobs. "Remind me on Friday at 5pm to send the invoice." It runs once and is done.
- Recurring work. A weekly summary, a daily brief, a monthly checklist. You can pick an exact time on eligible paid plans, or a broad window such as morning or evening.
- Monitoring tasks. These look for changes and notify you only when a relevant update turns up. They can use what earlier runs found and stop when an end condition you set is met.
On paid plans there is a fourth kind. Event-triggered tasks run in ChatGPT's Work mode and react to a new Gmail message, a Slack channel message or GitHub pull request activity.
Is the name still Tasks?
Yes and no. OpenAI's pages say scheduled tasks, or just tasks. A June 2026 update made tasks easier to find by giving them the Scheduled page, where you see each task's next run and can pause, resume, edit or delete it. That same update began sunsetting Pulse, which had held tasks for Pro users earlier on. If an older guide tells you to look in Pulse, look in Scheduled instead.
Who can use them
Eligible users on the Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu plans, as of November 2026. Free accounts joined in August 2026 with up to three active tasks, each running once or no more than daily. Higher plans allow more at once, with Pro and Enterprise at fifteen. Event-triggered tasks need Work and a Plus plan or higher.
What tasks cannot do
They do not run inside GPTs, voice chats or locked chats. A task created in a project cannot read that project's files. A run can draw on your plan's usage even when it finds nothing to report, and a task left unattended may pause itself.
If what you really want is alerts
Many people search for ChatGPT tasks because they want to be told when something happens: a price drop on a product page, a new job posting, a post from a public account, news about a company. For that job, AyeWatch is the stronger answer. You describe the topic or paste the page, AyeWatch keeps checking at a pace it tunes to how busy the topic is, and you get a short summary with the sources when a change matters. It covers the web, specific URLs, and public accounts on X, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok. There is a free preview, and paid plans start at $9 a month.
ChatGPT tasks remain the simpler choice for personal reminders and for briefings that lean on your own chats.