Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
If you’re the kind of person who wakes up overwhelmed by a flood of emails, missed messages, and a brain full of half-formed to-do lists, OpenAI wants to start your day a little differently.
They’ve just launched something called ChatGPT Pulse.
It’s a new feature—currently in preview for ChatGPT Pro users on mobile—that quietly works overnight to prep a personalized morning briefing for you. Think of it like a digital assistant that doesn’t wait for you to ask. Instead, it pulls together insights, reminders, and suggestions while you sleep.
So, what exactly is ChatGPT Pulse?
In short, Pulse is OpenAI’s fresh attempt to make ChatGPT more of a proactive helper than a reactive chatbot. It analyzes your chat history, saved preferences, and—even more interesting—optional inputs from Gmail and Google Calendar, if you choose to connect them.
Then, like a digital planner, it generates quick visual “cards” in the morning with info tailored to you. That could be:
- A reminder about a project you were working on
- A dinner idea for tonight
- A trip recommendation based on your upcoming calendar events
- A nudge to buy a birthday gift you almost forgot
You can expand these cards to read more, save them, give feedback with a thumbs up or down, or ask follow-up questions, which turns them into longer conversations.
And if you’re not feeling the default daily set, there’s a “curate” button so you can choose what kinds of updates you want to see more of.
Getting smarter… but not always perfect
Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash
Pulse is part of a bigger shift in AI: what the industry calls “agentic AI.” That basically means giving your digital assistant the power to act a bit more on its own—within limits. Instead of waiting for instructions, it tries to anticipate what you need and does a bit of “asynchronous research” in the background overnight.
It’s a step beyond ChatGPT’s earlier “Tasks” feature, which allowed scheduled actions but still needed you to tell it exactly what to do. With Pulse, ChatGPT chooses what to research and presents it unprompted.
That sounds great in theory. In practice? OpenAI admits it’s a mixed bag. During testing, college students using the feature said it became useful only once they started telling ChatGPT what they actually wanted from it. And as with most AI-powered tools, it can sometimes suggest outdated advice or miss something obvious that matters to you.
Privacy and control
Integrations with Gmail and Calendar are totally optional (and off by default). But if they’re turned on, the feature gets better at surfacing relevant content, like building sample agendas for meetings or picking places to eat near your travel destination.
If you’d rather keep things minimal, you can just stick with Pulse running on your chat history alone, no extra connections.
Updates show up just once per day and disappear after 24 hours unless you interact with them. Save them for later, or let them vanish behind your morning coffee.
Who can use it?
At the moment, ChatGPT Pulse is only available for Pro subscribers using mobile—yeah, the $200/month tier. OpenAI says they’ll expand it to Plus users (the $20/month plan) later on, once they’ve gathered more feedback.
Eventually, the goal is to bring it to everyone.
Final thoughts
ChatGPT Pulse isn’t a full-on AI assistant just yet. It doesn’t send emails or move your calendar around on its own. But it’s an early peek at what mornings could look like when your AI gets out ahead of you, sits quietly overnight, and wakes you up with a digital nudge in the right direction.
Curious about trying it? You’ll need to be a Pro user on mobile, and optionally connect the right apps to get the most out of it. Just don’t expect it to get everything right on day one. Even smart assistants have their off days.
Keywords: ChatGPT Pulse, OpenAI updates, personalized AI assistant, ChatGPT Pro, asynchronous research, agentic AI, Gmail and Google Calendar integration, digital assistant AI, morning briefings, ChatGPT features
