OpenAI's new ChatGPT Pulse feature wants to cure your morning doom-scrolling with personalized AI briefings

OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT Pulse, a new feature that works overnight to research topics and deliver personalized morning updates to users. The AI assistant now proactively generates 5-10 brief reports while you sleep, covering everything from sports updates to travel itineraries based on your chat history and connected apps.

Currently limited to Pro subscribers paying $200 monthly, Pulse represents OpenAI's shift toward making ChatGPT more like a proactive assistant rather than a reactive chatbot. The feature appears as a new tab in the mobile app, displaying colorful cards that users can quickly scan or tap for detailed reports.

OpenAI wants users checking ChatGPT first thing in the morning instead of social media or news apps. Each Pulse session deliberately ends with "Great, that's it for today" to avoid the endless scrolling that characterizes other platforms.

During a demo, OpenAI's product team showed off Pulse generating Arsenal soccer news, Halloween costume ideas for families, and toddler-friendly travel plans for Arizona. The system pulls from your conversation history, calendar events, and email when you connect those services.

"We're building AI that lets us take the level of support that only the wealthiest have been able to afford and make it available to everyone," said Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Applications, though the feature starts exclusively with their most expensive tier.

The company plans expanding Pulse to Plus subscribers soon, with eventual rollout to all ChatGPT users once they optimize the computationally intensive process. Users can guide what appears by giving thumbs up or down feedback and requesting specific topics for future briefs.

OpenAI envisions Pulse eventually handling more complex tasks like making restaurant reservations or drafting emails, though those agentic capabilities remain far off and would require significant improvements to their AI models.