ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks: OpenAI Retires Pulse, Adds Monitoring

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks on June 17, 2026, a new system that lets the assistant run prompts on a timer, deliver recurring briefings, and watch the web for changes worth reporting. The feature is rolling out to Go, Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscribers on the web and mobile ChatGPT apps, and the new experience replaces the older Pulse proactive assistant. Pulse is being phased out within 14 days, according to OpenAI.

What’s Rolling Out in ChatGPT

OpenAI is replacing its original proactive tasks product, Pulse, with a more general scheduling system. ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks live in a new Scheduled page in the sidebar, where users can view active tasks, see when each will run next, and pause, resume, edit, or delete them. Tasks can be one-off or recurring, and OpenAI has rebuilt the system to be faster and more reliable than the version it replaces, the company says in its OpenAI Help Center documentation for Tasks in ChatGPT.

The assistant can now handle three broad kinds of work. Reminders fire at a chosen time. Recurring jobs handle things like daily briefings, weekly recaps, or language practice sessions. Monitoring jobs periodically check the web or a connected app and notify the user only when there is something worth reporting.

The new Scheduled page is available on the ChatGPT web interface and the mobile app, but not on the ChatGPT desktop app or the Codex app, OpenAI’s help documentation states. OpenAI confirmed the launch through its ChatGPTapp account the same day.

The Scheduled Page and How It Works

The new page is a single hub for everything automated. From the Scheduled tab, a user can see all running tasks at once, click into any one to review past responses, and adjust the schedule or instructions without opening the underlying chat. That is a change from the earlier Tasks experience, where each task was managed inside its own conversation thread.

The system supports three scheduling shapes. A user can pick a specific date and time for a one-off prompt, set a recurring run at the same time on chosen days, or pick a broader window such as morning, afternoon, or evening and let ChatGPT decide when in that block to fire the task. The help center documentation flags the broader windows as a new scheduling option. The flexibility matters because recurring prompts that were once bound to an exact minute can now drift inside a block, which is closer to how people actually use reminders.

Creating a task still starts with a normal prompt to ChatGPT. Users can type something like “Give me an AI news briefing every weekday at 8 a.m.” or “Practice Spanish with me every evening” and ChatGPT will register the schedule. Once a task is set, the user can manage it from the new Scheduled page.

1. Open ChatGPT on the web or mobile app and tap the new Scheduled page in the sidebar.
2. Review the list of active tasks and their next run times.
3. Tap a task to open it, view past responses, or change the schedule or instructions.
4. Pause, resume, edit, or delete tasks from the same page.
5. To turn off task notifications, go to Settings, then Notifications, and adjust the task notification toggle.

Monitoring Tasks Bring Web and App Awareness

Monitoring is the most behaviorally distinct of the three task types. A monitoring task tells ChatGPT to periodically check for a change and ping the user only when there is something worth reporting. The help center documentation says previous runs are remembered, so the assistant can spot deltas rather than resending the same alert. A monitored task can also stop on its own when an end condition is met, which means the user does not have to remember to cancel it.

Monitoring tasks can read from connected apps when those apps are available for the account or workspace, OpenAI’s documentation says. A personal user can manage app permissions directly. A Business or Enterprise user may find that available apps and permissions depend on workspace settings and what an admin has enabled. In managed workspaces, admins may control persistent permissions or limit certain app actions, so a task may need approval before using an app or may be blocked from taking some actions.

The help center is explicit that tasks do not currently support webhooks, which means there is no event-triggered automation. Tasks are built for scheduled or recurring check-ins, not for firing the moment an outside event happens. That is a hard limit for users who want to chain tasks to external services in real time.

Task Limits, by Plan

OpenAI has set per-plan limits on the number of active tasks a single account can run at once. The help center’s published cap for the Go plan is 3 active tasks, for Plus 5, and for Pro, Business, and Enterprise 15. Tasks also cannot run more often than once per hour, regardless of plan.

Unattended tasks may also auto-pause after a period of inactivity, OpenAI says. If a user deletes the chat associated with a task, the task pauses automatically; deleting the task itself, by contrast, leaves the chat intact. The two-way delete rule is a small but useful guardrail, since users who tidy up old conversations do not want to lose their scheduled jobs and users who want to clean up their scheduled jobs do not want to wipe the conversation history.

Why OpenAI Is Retiring Pulse

Pulse, the proactive assistant that OpenAI introduced to Pro users as a preview, is being removed. OpenAI said in its announcement that the new scheduled tasks system replaces Pulse and that Pulse will be removed within 14 days of the June 17, 2026 launch.

Daily Pulse users feel the retirement hardest. Pulse was designed to surface personalized briefings on its own, pulling from past chats, calendar items, and connected apps, and sending them on a daily cadence. Scheduled tasks can do most of the same work, but the user has to set the cadence themselves. That moves the user from a recipient of automatic briefings to the author of one, a change in feel that holds even where the underlying capability overlaps.

OpenAI’s framing is that scheduled tasks are simply a more flexible version of the same idea. The help center says scheduled tasks cover “proactive work such as reminders, recurring tasks, daily briefings, and monitoring.” A user who relied on Pulse for a daily morning briefing can reproduce the experience with a recurring scheduled task, OpenAI says. A user who relied on Pulse for spontaneous or interest-driven alerts that Pulse chose to send will need to translate those into explicit monitoring tasks, which is more setup work.

The window is also short for users with custom Pulse configurations. OpenAI has not announced a one-click migration path, and the help center does not mention an automatic transfer of Pulse settings into scheduled tasks. Users have to set up the equivalent briefings themselves, one task at a time.

ChatGPT Tasks vs Codex Automations

OpenAI has drawn a sharper line between ChatGPT’s Scheduled Tasks and the automations that already exist inside Codex. The help center puts it directly: “Scheduled tasks are a ChatGPT feature for proactive work such as reminders, recurring tasks, daily briefings, and monitoring. Codex automations are focused workflows that run in Codex.” The two systems overlap in name but not in scope.

Codex automations are tied to the Codex app and run focused workflows inside that environment. Scheduled tasks stay inside the consumer ChatGPT product and inherit ChatGPT’s model and plan tiers. A user who needs a job to read a connected Gmail inbox and send a daily summary can do that in ChatGPT. A user who needs a coding workflow is pointed at Codex automations.

The two product lines have been growing in parallel. Codex for Mac recently added Dock icon customisation, saved limit resets, and Computer Use support in the European Union, per 9to5Mac. Codex also added six business plugins covering 62 apps and 110 skills, with 20% of its 5 million weekly users from outside software development, according to a recent Oton Technology report on Codex’s plugin rollout. Scheduled tasks stay on the consumer ChatGPT side of the wall, leaving the developer workflows in Codex.

Scheduled tasks are a ChatGPT feature for proactive work such as reminders, recurring tasks, daily briefings, and monitoring. Codex automations are focused workflows that run in Codex.

The Push Toward a Proactive Assistant

The Scheduled Tasks launch is the most visible piece of OpenAI’s broader pivot to a proactive assistant. The product, until now, has been primarily reactive: a user types, ChatGPT answers. The new feature lets ChatGPT initiate work on a clock and decide on its own when a monitoring task has something to report. That shift, from a reactive answer engine to a scheduled executor, is a substantive change in the product’s posture.

It also lands at a moment when OpenAI is working to turn ChatGPT into a super app. The company is merging Codex and the Atlas browser into one platform ahead of a confidential IPO filing targeting a valuation near $852 billion, according to a recent Oton Technology report on OpenAI’s super app plans. Scheduled tasks are the kind of feature that only works inside a unified surface where the assistant can see other apps and services. Putting scheduling in the sidebar of the consumer ChatGPT product is a first step toward that surface.

The combined effect is a ChatGPT that is increasingly doing things in the background as well as answering on demand. Whether users want that is a separate question, and the once-per-hour cap, the auto-pause for inactivity, and the per-plan task limits suggest OpenAI is aware of the cost. The product is shipped; the public’s reaction comes next.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks?

ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks is the new automation system OpenAI rolled out inside ChatGPT on June 17, 2026. It gives the assistant three ways to work: one-off prompts, recurring jobs, and monitoring tasks that ping users only when there is something worth reporting. Everything is managed from a dedicated Scheduled page in the sidebar.

When did OpenAI launch Scheduled Tasks?

OpenAI began rolling out Scheduled Tasks on June 17, 2026, starting with paid subscribers on the web and mobile ChatGPT apps. The launch is the first day the new Scheduled page was available inside ChatGPT for general use.

Who can use ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks?

Scheduled Tasks are rolling out to Go, Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscribers on the web and mobile ChatGPT apps. The Scheduled tab is not available on the ChatGPT desktop app or the Codex app at this time, according to OpenAI’s help center.

How do you create a scheduled task in ChatGPT?

Users create a task by typing a normal prompt to ChatGPT, such as “Give me an AI news briefing every weekday at 8 a.m.” or “Practice Spanish with me every evening.” ChatGPT registers the schedule, and the task appears on the new Scheduled page in the sidebar, where it can be paused, edited, or deleted.

What happened to ChatGPT Pulse?

ChatGPT Pulse, OpenAI’s earlier proactive assistant preview, is being removed and replaced by the new Scheduled Tasks system. OpenAI said Pulse is being phased out within 14 days of the June 17, 2026 launch, and users will need to move to the new Scheduled page to keep getting their briefings.