OpenAI’s ChatGPT Pulse Will Deliver Daily Personalised Updates But at a Privacy Cost

OpenAI introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature to ChatGPT on Thursday that leans on agentic capabilities and makes the AI chatbot proactive, instead of reactive. Dubbed ChatGPT Pulse, it is a personalisation feature that delivers daily updates about the user. This update is generally about an event, a meeting, or an activity that is scheduled for that day. Pulse is currently only available to the top-tier Pro subscription of the chatbot, and users do have an option to control the updates it shows daily.

ChatGPT Pulse Is OpenAI's First Proactive Feature

In a post on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the feature. He called ChatGPT Pulse a shift from the chatbot's reactive nature to more of a proactive approach. Essentially, so far, the interaction with ChatGPT follows a simple pattern: the user asks something, and the chatbot responds. Every output is preceded by an input. But the new feature changes that.

As per a blog post, Pulse does asynchronous research every night on behalf of the user. It collects data from memory, chat history, direct feedback, and connected apps to learn what could be most relevant to a user, and then presents a visual update in the morning. The ability to conduct research independently is an agentic capability.

Explaining what these updates could look like, the post states, “These could look like follow-ups on topics you discuss often, ideas for a quick, healthy dinner to make at home that evening, or next steps toward a longer-term goal such as training for a triathlon.”

If a user decides to connect their Gmail and Google Calendar with the feature, the agent will also be able to use data from these sources to curate more relevant options, the company said. For example, the agent can draft a meeting agenda, remind the user to buy a gift for an upcoming birthday, show restaurant recommendations for a trip, and more. Notably, these integrations are turned off by default.

Additionally, users also have a way to control the updates they see. At the end of each update, there is a Curate option where users can request ChatGPT to research something in particular for future editions.

A Question About Privacy

With the rise of generative AI chatbots, the lines defining privacy have been significantly blurred. The technology only works when fed with relevant, and at times deeply personal data. For instance, to get an opinion on your blood test report, you will have to share the report first. To make a financial plan for your early retirement, it needs to know about your salary, savings, and assets and liabilities. Many users are also happy to provide this data to chatbots.

Pulse, with its assistant-like capabilities, makes it more convenient for users to share their personal information with the chatbot. Altman even says in the post, “It performs super well if you tell ChatGPT more about what's important to you.”

While OpenAI mentions that the Pulse updates are only available to the user, its functionality requires it to have consistent access to user data, which is stored and processed on the company's servers. So far, OpenAI has not done a lot to highlight this and understand if users are comfortable sharing personal information, and risk it being leaked in a possible data breach.