The CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, recently said he fears that AI might end his company. It sounds crazy, but here’s another example of how OpenAI wants to dethrone Google. ChatGPT Pulse is being introduced to become your hub for daily news and recommendations, so that you stop using Google Discover … and social networks.
Little by little, we are seeing how Sam Altman’s company wants ChatGPT to stop being just a chatbot that answers questions, and instead become an AI agent that does tasks for you. That is what Pulse offers: a ChatGPT tool that works on its own to provide you with news, recommendations, and other information, ready for when you wake up.
The goal of OpenAI is for ChatGPT to become the first app you open when you wake, replacing Google Discover or social media.
How ChatGPT Pulse works
Pulse appears as a small button in the ChatGPT mobile app. Using your conversation history and your calendar, it prepares a selection of five or six “cards,” so that they are ready for you when you wake up.
These cards contain personalised information, which changes daily. There is a selection of important news items (according to the AI’s judgement), based on your topics of interest. If you are going to travel, it may recommend restaurants or things to see. If you’ve told it you are on a diet, it might propose a new low-calorie recipe.
If you are in exams, it might generate a list of relaxation tips, or a table of exercises to loosen your body. You can see some more examples in this video.
The list is very varied, and will grow over time depending on your interactions with ChatGPT. If you are a fan of a soccer team, it will show you news about it. A few days before Halloween, it will make recommendations for costumes for your children.
Pulse is compatible with ChatGPT Connectors, so you can connect apps like Gmail, so it also gives you a summary of the most important emails, ready when you wake.
A noteworthy point is that ChatGPT Pulse will only show five or six cards, then it ends with “That’s all for today.” It does not want to become an infinite scroll tool like social media.
Although OpenAI claims it does not intend to resemble them, the truth is that it pursues the same thing: to have you hooked on ChatGPT from the moment you wake until you go to bed.
OpenAI has acknowledged that Pulse is “a very compute-intensive tool,” so for the moment it is only available to ChatGPT Pro users, which costs $200 per month. But it promises that its goal is to make it available to everyone, soon.