OpenAI is stepping into a new phase with its flagship assistant by introducing ChatGPT Pulse, a feature designed to make AI part of your morning routine before you’ve even had your first coffee. 
The premise is both ambitious and a little unsettling: Pulse quietly works in the background overnight, curating information from your recent chats, connected apps, and your feedback to deliver a tailored stream of updates as soon as you wake up.
Initially rolling out to Pro subscribers on mobile, Pulse organizes its findings into swipeable cards. Each card can be skimmed in seconds or tapped for deeper insights, allowing users to digest a morning briefing without the need to scroll endlessly through apps and inboxes. Imagine your phone presenting a ready-made digest: a reminder that your colleague’s birthday is tomorrow, a suggested dinner spot for your weekend trip, or even a draft agenda for your morning meeting pulled directly from Gmail and Google Calendar integrations.
What makes Pulse different from traditional digital assistants is the way it learns. Every night, it taps into your activity, your saved preferences, and the direct thumbs-up/thumbs-down feedback you’ve given. Then, using that context, it generates a new package of updates for the following day. These daily updates are ephemeral, disappearing after 24 hours unless you choose to save them into a chat thread or follow up with a query. This design ensures the information feels fresh, not like a cluttered archive you’ll never revisit.
OpenAI emphasizes that every Pulse update is filtered through its safety systems. The goal is not only to be helpful but also to guarantee users won’t stumble across content that breaches policy or veers into unsafe territory. That attention to moderation is crucial, especially since Pulse reaches into personal data streams like calendars, emails, and historical conversations.
Beneath the surface, Pulse is more than just a morning convenience – it’s a signpost pointing to the future of AI. Instead of merely reacting when prompted, ChatGPT is moving toward anticipating needs. This evolution is happening industry-wide: Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Anthropic are all pursuing the same vision of AI that quietly acts as an intelligent co-pilot, handling errands and tasks before you think to delegate them. In practical terms, this could soon mean your assistant books travel arrangements, purchases gifts, or assembles presentations in the background, waiting for your approval rather than your request.
Yet this vision raises inevitable questions about privacy and control. To personalize effectively, Pulse requires access to a user’s history and linked accounts. With features like “reference history” turned on, the assistant can draw on past chats, dig through your inbox, or scan calendar entries to prepare your day. While this creates a seamless experience, it also pushes us toward deeper reliance on AI, essentially outsourcing chunks of daily decision-making. The convenience is undeniable, but it brings with it the unease of handing over more of our personal data and autonomy.
Pulse illustrates the delicate balance between technological progress and user trust. On one side lies the promise of frictionless productivity; on the other, the concern that each step forward makes us more dependent on systems we don’t fully control. For now, Pulse is a glimpse of how AI might become less of a tool you use occasionally and more of a presence that actively structures your day. Whether this shift feels like smart assistance or a creeping overreach will likely depend on how much users are willing to trade their privacy for convenience.
2 comments
I kinda want this, mornings are chaos 😅
ngl this feels like Black Mirror tbh 😂