Most leaders ask ChatGPT the same kind of question every week. A scheduled task asks it for you.
A ChatGPT scheduled task is a saved instruction with a schedule. At the time you choose, ChatGPT runs the instruction again, writes a fresh answer and notifies you. It can also watch for a change and tell you only when something meaningful happens.
Where to find scheduled tasks in ChatGPT
Open Scheduled in the ChatGPT sidebar, on the web, in the mobile apps or in the desktop app, and select New task. You can also ask for a task in any regular chat, and ChatGPT turns the request into a task.
What your plan includes
- Free and Go: up to 3 active tasks. On Free, a task repeats at most once a day and runs in a broad window, such as the morning.
- Plus: up to 5 active tasks, with exact times and repeats as often as once an hour.
- Business and Edu: up to 10 active tasks.
- Pro and Enterprise: up to 15 active tasks.
- Event-triggered tasks: on Plus and higher plans, tasks in ChatGPT Work can also respond to new activity in a connected Gmail, Slack or GitHub account.
Paused and finished tasks do not count toward the limit. Tasks do not work with voice chats, GPTs or locked chats.
When scheduled tasks earn their place
- Weekly briefs on your industry, competitors or key accounts.
- Reminders that include thinking, such as a Friday prompt to review the week against your priorities.
- Lightweight monitoring, such as a new product announcement or a job opening at a target company.
- Recurring reports from your apps, such as a Monday summary of important email, when Gmail is connected.
How to create a scheduled task, step by step
Step 1: Say what you want and when. In a regular chat, put the instruction and the schedule in one prompt:
Every Monday at 8 AM, review the past week's news about the [your industry] industry and give me a five-bullet executive brief focused on implications for leaders. Keep it under 200 words.
Step 2: Open the task. ChatGPT recognizes the recurring request and creates a task. Select it to check the schedule.
Step 3: Test it with Run now. Run the task once, read the output and adjust the instruction until the format is right. Then save it.
Step 4: Add a monitoring task. For things that do not happen on a schedule, ask ChatGPT to watch for them:
Let me know when [company] announces a new [product or feature].
ChatGPT checks in the background and notifies you only when the condition is met.
Step 5: Manage your tasks. On the Scheduled page, pause, edit or delete any task. Treat each task as a prompt you can improve, and refine it as your needs change.
Good to know: unattended tasks may pause after a period of inactivity, and deleting the chat behind a task pauses the task.
A CODO prompt for a weekly intelligence brief
This prompt, built with our CODO framework, gives you a weekly brief on the topics that matter to your role. Replace the bracketed parts, run it once and check the sources before you let it repeat. In ChatGPT, the last line of the prompt creates the schedule.
Character: Act as a world-class intelligence assistant. Objective: I am the [role] at [company] in [industry]. Run a weekly web scan on [3 to 5 topics] so that I am the best-informed person in the room on these topics. Do: - Use only credible sources from the last 7 days. - Prioritize primary sources, such as official documents, reports and datasets. - Record the date, author and organization for every item. Don't: - Don't invent facts, figures or quotes. - Don't stretch the meaning of facts, numbers or quotes. - Don't favor novelty over relevance. Output: What matters this week, with up to 5 items. For each item, give the news in one plain sentence, then three bullets: - Why it matters: one sentence on the business impact. - Action to consider: one clear action I could take this week. - Source: date, author, organization and link. End with one sentence that sums up the main takeaways. Run it once now. When I confirm the format, run it every Monday at 9 AM.
Want to go further? These pages help you decide what to automate next:
- Build your AI executive daily briefing: set up a morning brief that pulls together what you need before your day starts.
- Build an AI-powered workload audit for automation: find the recurring work in your week that is worth handing to AI.
- Automate LinkedIn content creation with ChatGPT tasks: a worked example of a weekly task.
- ChatGPT Work is here: where event-triggered tasks run.
What will your IT and legal teams ask?
- What data can a task use? The web, and any connected apps, such as Gmail, within the permissions you set. On Business and Enterprise plans, admins decide which apps are available.
- Can a task act on our behalf? If a connected app allows actions, yes. Ask for drafts only, and send or post anything yourself after review. Actions that need approval pause the task.
- Is our data used for training? Not on Business, Enterprise and Edu plans by default.
- What does a shared task reveal? A shared link includes the instructions and schedule, but not your chat history, memories, files or connected app data.
ChatGPT or another tool?
ChatGPT is the easiest place to start, because every plan includes scheduled tasks and you set them up in plain language.
If your work lives in Microsoft 365, Copilot scheduled prompts draw on your email, meetings and chats. On Google Workspace, Gemini scheduled actions or Google Workspace Studio fit better, and Claude scheduled tasks can work with your connected tools. Our overview of AI scheduled tasks compares all five options.
Key takeaways
- Put the instruction and the schedule in one prompt.
- Test with Run now before you rely on a task.
- Use monitoring tasks for events that do not follow a schedule.
- Ask for drafts only when a task can act in your apps.
- Review and refine each task as your needs change.
