ChatGPT’s New Background Agent ‘Insanely Useful’

OpenAI announced a new feature for the $200 monthly ChatGPT Pro plan, called ‘ChatGPT Pulse,’ on September 25. 

The feature offers a feed-like experience on ChatGPT, delivering updates to users based on their chat history and drawing information from all the connected apps. 

Pulse consists of visual cards on various topics that can be expanded for more detailed information. Users receive a new Pulse with a fresh set of cards every day. 

“This is the first step toward a more useful ChatGPT that proactively brings you what you need, helping you make more progress so you can get back to your life,” said the company. 

OpenAI said that, based on feedback from Pro users, the feature will be rolled out to the $20 monthly ChatGPT Plus plan, with the eventual goal of making it available to everyone. 

Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of OpenAI, described it as a ‘background agent’ that provides daily updates to users on topics of interest. 

Initial reactions from users have been mainly positive. Simon Smith, the executive vice president of generative AI at Klick Health, said in a post on X, “This is going to be insanely useful.” 

“You get content on very specific things you've been discussing with ChatGPT. For example, I was chatting with it the other day about AIs competing with each other, so it presented some content on that,” he added, in his review of the feature.

He also added that it curates content based on things that users have mentioned in passing and are genuinely interested in. “It noticed I've been asking about Toronto's crashing condo market, for example, so found me an article on that,” he added. 

However, some users also expressed concerns about the future of ChatGPT. “Feels like an attempt to build a ‘feed" for ‘scrolling’. Feels very passive vs utilising the conversational strengths of LLMs. and yeah, mostly news (sic),” said Kevin Xu, CEO of Alpha AI, in a post on X.

The release of Pulse also coincides with reports that OpenAI is seeking someone who can help the company with advertising, reporting to Fidji Simo, the CEO of applications.