How Tasks Work in ChatGPT
Tasks are a new beta feature for the paid-for versions of ChatGPT, allowing you to schedule a prompt to run at a certain time. In this article, we’ll explore the feature and demonstrate its capabilities.
How to Enable Tasks
To enable tasks, you need a Plus (or better) paid account to ChatGPT, and you’ll need to select the GPT-4o with scheduled tasks model.
Scheduling a Task
Once you’re in the model, you can invoke the scheduling of tasks in your prompt with something like the "at" statement or "schedule a task" prefix. It seems like ChatGPT does a fair job of interpreting anything that implies a future time request as a task.
Managing Tasks
You can see and manage existing tasks in the browser interface by selecting "Tasks" from the drop-down menu under your profile picture. The tasks screen allows you to see the tasks you’ve scheduled and those that have been completed. Hovering over the time will reveal a pencil and three dots, which allow you to pause, prevent, or delete a task.
Editing a Task
The pencil icon gives you an edit screen that lets you revise the task before it next runs. You can rename the task, edit the prompt, and change its scheduling.
Gateway Drug to Agentifying AI
Adding tasks to ChatGPT seems fairly uninteresting at first glance. However, it can also do more than full-featured task managers. It can run an AI prompt, which means it can take fairly intelligent action automatically at a specific time or times in the future.
Attempting to Get a Daily News Briefing
I attempted to get a daily news briefing by combining the agent service with ChatGPT web searching. Sometimes, ChatGPT made up stories. Sometimes, it gave me sources and stories from a year ago. Sometimes it cited stories that supposedly came from one site but came from completely different sites.
Generating a Custom Weather Briefing
My next attempt was to get a daily weather briefing. I wanted something more than just a quick weather report. I have a weather widget on my desktop and can see the weather detail… wanted it to draw a picture representing the weather at the time the prompt was executed.
Conclusion
To be fair, OpenAI does label this feature as beta. And boy-oh-boy, is it beta. On one hand, the idea of an AI agent being able to do things like draw a representative picture of a certain set of data seems intriguing. On the other hand, an AI agent that refuses to follow directions and goes off on all sorts of tangents seems terrifying.
FAQs
Q: What is ChatGPT Tasks?
A: ChatGPT Tasks is a new beta feature for the paid-for versions of ChatGPT, allowing you to schedule a prompt to run at a certain time.
Q: How do I enable Tasks?
A: To enable tasks, you need a Plus (or better) paid account to ChatGPT, and you’ll need to select the GPT-4o with scheduled tasks model.
Q: What can I do with Tasks?
A: You can schedule a prompt to run at a certain time, allowing you to take intelligent action automatically at a specific time or times in the future.
Q: Is ChatGPT Tasks ready for prime time?
A: No, the feature is still in beta and has some issues with following directions and generating accurate results.
