As the battle of words continues between Microsoft and Salesforce over their respective agentic AI offerings, ChatGPT has sneaked in an upgrade that shows it is pushing hard in that area too.
OpenAI is bringing reminder or recurring requests scheduling to its AI assistant as a beta and the roll out will start worldwide this week.
However, the option will just be available for paying customers — those signed up to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro — as the company claws back some funds after its Pro package fails to make money.
What Is the New ChatGPT Beta Feature?
Called Tasks, the feature allows users to set simple reminders using ChatGPT.
These can be reminders for deadlines to pay bills, however, the requests can also be more complex. You could ask ChatGPT to create a plan for your Saturday, for example, taking into account the weather forecast and where you will be.
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Users can engage with the new Tasks option from the dropdown menu in the ChatGPT web app but OpenAI says that users might also see the AI assistant make its own suggestions of tasks based on chats you have with it.
Tasks can be managed by chatting with the AI assistant on any platform. However, they can’t be set through Advanced Voice Mode during the beta testing period, but perhaps this is something we can hope for in the future.
Limited Scheduling Abilities…for the Moment
Reminders are something we now use routinely with Siri and Alexa; and so in that respect, ChatGPT is playing catch up. However, this is the first step and OpenAI says that it will use data from this beta testing period to see how users are working with Tasks.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been open in his hopes for AI agents and put this into words in a blog posted a week ago. He wrote: “We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents “join the workforce” and materially change the output of companies.”
According to Bloomberg, one of the first releases could be an agent called Operator, which can book travel and write code.
Innovation for ChatGPT but at What Cost?
With more independent agents, though, comes security concerns. OpenAI’s safeguarding measures have already been put under the spotlight; and continue to be scrutinized.
In particular, both US senators and former OpenAI employees questioned why Altman was a member of the company’s oversight committee. Created to look at company’s creations from a safety angle, this committee’s independence was at stake, critics argued, with Altman on board. He has since stepped down.
However, the creation of formal frameworks for AI technology development continue to prove divisive. While there is support for an AI safety bill, the language of any such legislation is proving hard to get consensus upon.
The last iteration of the AI Safety Bill was blocked by Gavin Newsome, Governor of California, who supports the idea of a bill but said that this version isn’t “…the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology”.
The wrangle continues while the technology companies keep pushing the boundaries of what their agentic AI can do; and we know that their innovation is happening far faster than any legislation.
