Use Google Gemini and ChatGPT to Organize Your Life With Scheduled Actions (www.wired.com)

Google has added scheduled actions to its Gemini chatbot — letting users tell the model in natural language to run a task at a specific time or on a recurring cadence (daily/weekly/monthly or a one‑off). The feature mirrors ChatGPT’s existing scheduled “tasks”; both platforms let you describe what should happen (e.g., generate an image, send a weather/news briefing, or produce a meal suggestion), confirm the timing, and then run the job even if the app is closed. Both require paid tiers (Google AI Pro and ChatGPT Plus start at about $20/month) and limit you to 10 active scheduled items per account. Gemini lets you create and manage actions on web and mobile; ChatGPT allows creation on all clients but requires the web UI to manage tasks and notification preferences. This is significant because it moves large language models from on‑demand helpers to lightweight automation engines, increasing daily “stickiness” and positioning assistants as personal schedulers and content pipelines. Technical implications include server‑side scheduling and execution, push/email notifications, and simple recurrence handling (no complex cadences like “every second Tuesday” or random triggers). The features also surface product tradeoffs: paid monetization for background services, limits on concurrent tasks, and new expectations for reliability, privacy, and integration with device notifications and other automation tools.