Capability 08
Something that runs on a schedule.
Exact name Scheduled trigger
Step 04 · Let it workWhat it is.
A request you set up once, which the tool then runs on its own at the times you choose: every morning, every Monday, the first of the month.
What your tool calls it.
- Scheduled tasks: Requests you set up once that ChatGPT then runs later or on a repeating schedule, without you present.
- scheduled tasks: Repeating or on-demand tasks you set up in Cowork. In the cloud version they run with no device online.
- Schedules: Gemini runs a prompt on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule and prepares the result before the delivery time. Up to 10 schedules can be active at once.
- schedules (for tasks): A trigger that starts a task at a set time or when an event happens, such as a flight delay, without you present.
- Scheduled Prompts: Saves a Copilot prompt to run automatically at a set time and frequency. Results appear in your Copilot chats. Up to 10 per user.
- Scheduled Tasks in Computer: Repeating jobs that Computer runs in the background on a schedule you set, as often as every 15 minutes. Each run uses credits.
Also at Perplexity: Perplexity TasksAutomations
- Automations: Grok runs a prompt for you on a schedule (once, daily, weekly and so on), or when an email arrives, on grok.com and in the Grok apps.
Also at Grok: skills and routines (Grok Bot)previewscheduled promptspreview
- scheduled tasks: Muse runs recurring tasks on a schedule, such as daily check-ins or weekly summaries, and sends one-time, recurring or location-based reminders as messages in the Muse chat.
- daily briefing: Meta AI prepares a summary from the user's calendar and chosen topics at a set time. Other tasks set up once, such as a weekly meal plan, keep being delivered.
- Scheduled tasks: Runs a saved prompt automatically at a set time, once or on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly cadence, then notifies you with the result.
Every tool on this map has one. Five call it scheduled tasks; the other three each use a word of their own.
Why it matters.
Our view: it's the first step from "I asked it" to "it happens". It's also the first time the tool works when you're not watching, so it's worth deciding up front what should happen when a run fails, and who finds out.
Words that trip people up.
- Task. Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Meta's Muse and Mistral call these "scheduled tasks". But Gemini's "Task" is something else entirely: an agent that works through a job. More on "task" →
- Schedule. Gemini's Schedules are for chats; its tasks have schedules of their own, and Google says the two are different. More on "schedule" →
- Routine. Claude's scheduled tasks used to be called routines, and the old name still appears. At Grok, routines are a Grok Bot feature, separate from Automations. More on "routine" →
- Paid licence. Microsoft's Scheduled Prompts need the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence.
- Gemini's old name was "Scheduled actions"; Google's help page now says Schedules.
Close to this, but not it.
Next to it.
One step up.
Step 05 · Build & shareTurn something that works for you into a tool your whole team uses.
What this step asks of you.
It asks before anything public or destructive. It works only in a space you've defined. It keeps a record of what it changed, file by file.
Where we teach it.
Set it to run without you: you set a recurring task to run on a schedule, and say what happens when it fails, who finds out, and what breaks it. It's in the longer class, along with Triage the queue.