Key Facts Summary

• Sam Altman declared Pulse his favorite ChatGPT feature, describing it as a transition from reactive to proactive AI assistance
• Pulse generates 5-10 personalized morning briefings by processing chat history, memory, and connected apps overnight
• Currently exclusive to $200/month Pro subscribers on mobile, with future Plus expansion planned
• Early testers report useful personalization when actively guiding the AI, though some find proactive notifications intrusive
• User enthusiasm appears cautious compared to Advanced Voice Mode’s initial reception, with privacy concerns dominating discussions
• The feature positions ChatGPT as a recommendation feed, borrowing from social media and news aggregator models
• Integration with Gmail and Google Calendar remains disabled by default, requiring manual activation
• OpenAI acknowledges computing demands limit immediate widespread availability

Sam Altman Names Pulse as ChatGPT’s Future Direction

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Pulse as his favorite ChatGPT feature to date, stating it represents a transition from reactive responses to proactive, personalized assistance. His reasoning centers on transforming ChatGPT from a question-answer tool into what he describes as a “super-competent personal assistant.”

Sam Altman explained that Pulse works overnight, processing user interests, connected data, and recent conversations to generate customized morning updates. The CEO emphasized that performance improves when users share preferences naturally during conversations, such as mentioning travel aspirations or parenting milestones.

The fundamental premise, according to Altman, involves treating ChatGPT like an executive assistant—requesting immediate needs while sharing general preferences for proactive assistance. This approach aims to make AI anticipate user needs rather than merely responding to explicit commands.

How ChatGPT Pulse Actually Works

Pulse generates personalized reports while users sleep, offering five to ten briefings designed to prepare them for the day ahead. The feature aims to become a morning routine staple, competing with social media apps and news platforms for early attention.

Each report displays as a card featuring AI-generated images and text, allowing users to scan quickly or drill down for complete details and query ChatGPT about specific content. A core design choice involves limiting output with a “Great, that’s it for today” message, deliberately differentiating from engagement-optimized social platforms.

The technical implementation relies on multiple data sources. Pulse surfaces topics by analyzing ChatGPT memories, card interactions through thumbs up or down feedback, direct curate input from users, optional connected apps, and timely news and trends including adjacent content related to previous explorations.

Every topic undergoes layered safety checks to prevent harmful content that violates model or usage policies. Users maintain control through curation options, allowing requests for specific content like Friday event roundups or sports updates, with complete feedback history review and deletion capabilities.

Calendar and Email Integration Capabilities

Pulse compatibility with ChatGPT Connectors enables users to link Google Calendar and Gmail, allowing overnight email parsing to surface important messages or calendar access for generating meeting agendas. These integrations remain inactive by default, requiring users to navigate settings and manually enable them.

When memory features are active, Pulse pulls context from previous chats to enhance reports. OpenAI’s personalization lead Christina Wadsworth Kaplan illustrated how Pulse automatically detected her running interest to create a London trip itinerary including running routes, and as a pescatarian, the system identifies compatible menu items when processing dinner reservations from her calendar.

College students testing Pulse through the ChatGPT Lab provided feedback that shaped the feature, with one key insight revealing utility increased once users actively told ChatGPT what they wanted to see. One student received updates that were “several logical steps ahead” of their conversation about Taiwan grant period calendar management, exposing them to train and commute information they would never have discovered independently.

Computing Costs Drive Pro-Only Availability

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated earlier that compute-intensive products would be limited to the company’s most expensive subscription plan, which applies to Pulse. OpenAI previously indicated severe server limitations powering ChatGPT, with rapid AI data center construction underway through partnerships with Oracle and SoftBank to increase capacity.

Starting Thursday, OpenAI rolled out Pulse for $200-per-month Pro plan subscribers as a new tab in the ChatGPT app, with plans to launch to all users eventually, though Plus subscribers must wait while the product becomes more efficient.

Product lead Adam Fry indicated computing requirements vary tremendously by task—some projects run efficiently while others require extensive web searching and document synthesis. Future ambitions include making Pulse more agentic, potentially handling restaurant reservations or drafting emails for user approval, though such features remain distant and require significant model improvements before users would trust these decisions.

OpenAI Frames This as a New AI Interaction Paradigm

Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s new CEO of Applications, stated the company is building AI that democratizes support previously available only to the wealthy, with ChatGPT Pulse representing the first step—starting with Pro users but aiming to roll out intelligence to everyone.

OpenAI and Sam Altman himself describe Pulse as the first step toward a new paradigm for AI interaction, combining conversation, memory, and connected apps to shift ChatGPT from answering questions to being a proactive assistant working on user’s behalf. Over time, the vision encompasses AI systems that can research, plan, and take helpful actions based on user direction, enabling progress even when users aren’t actively asking questions.

Pulse introduces this future in its simplest form as personalized research and timely updates appearing regularly to keep users informed, with plans to soon connect more apps for a more complete contextual picture.

User Reactions Show Cautious Interest Mixed With Privacy Concerns

Early user feedback presents a nuanced picture diverging from Sam Altman’s enthusiasm. Reviewers find the card-based briefings useful for morning triage, making it easy to scan daily priorities and follow up on ongoing projects. Personalization improves with feedback, as rating cards and managing Memory sharpens briefings over time.

However, resistance to proactive AI emerged immediately. The September 2025 Hacker News launch thread includes criticism that AI-initiated messaging feels obnoxious to some users. Media and users raised legitimate questions about overnight processing and connector permissions, though OpenAI implemented connectors as off by default with anytime enable/disable options and an “Allow proactive activity” toggle.

Social media reactions to Sam Altman’s announcement included witty skepticism, with one user asking “Can I tell it to not be thinking of me all night?” Many users voiced privacy concerns about data extent accessed for personalization, with some pointing out potential risks from increasing AI capabilities.

Comparing Pulse Excitement to Previous Feature Launches

When measured against previous ChatGPT innovations, Pulse generates more measured reactions than transformative features like Advanced Voice Mode. Advanced Voice Mode initially sparked significant excitement, with early reviewers describing it as a leap into the future and praising the more fluid, fluent, and authentic experience compared to previous voice interactions.

Advanced Voice Mode’s September 2024 announcement marked what reviewers called a significant step in improving voice interactions for conversational AI, with the technology promising more natural, humanlike experiences. However, enthusiasm waned over time. Multiple users complained about forced Advanced Voice Mode adoption, describing the feature as awful compared to the original voice mode, calling it “complete garbage” and a “cheap imposter,” with concerns about different model behavior being more preachy and customer-service focused without personality.

Pulse lacks comparable widespread testing and viral demonstrations that accompanied Voice Mode, partly due to Pro-only availability limiting access to a small user base willing to pay $200 monthly.

The Feed Model: Not as Revolutionary as Sam Altman Suggests

Analysis reveals Pulse implements established patterns rather than groundbreaking innovation. The feature essentially transforms ChatGPT into a recommendation feed—a model dominating tech platforms for over a decade.

Before the ChatGPT AI boom, tech industry conversations about AI and machine learning centered on recommendations, as platforms deploying surveillant recommendation engines were taking over the world. Throughout the 2010s, social platforms drifted from chronological feeds to algorithmic recommendations drawing on user data and behaviors to show personalized material, with TikTok taking this model further by treating social connections as secondary to AI-driven learning.

An even closer cousin to Pulse is the algorithmic homepage popularized by Google Now, introduced in 2012 with descriptions about telling users daily weather, traffic expectations, train arrivals, and sports scores automatically at the moment they need them. By 2016, Google used machine learning algorithms to better anticipate what’s interesting and important to users, showing sports highlights, top news, engaging videos, new music, and stories based on both user interactions and trending topics, with the promise that more Google usage would improve the feed.

In tech product terms, OpenAI is doing an obvious and precedented thing with growing piles of accumulated user data—feeding it back to them in the form of content.

Business Model Implications Behind the Feature

Pulse serves strategic business purposes beyond user utility. Despite and partly because of its popularity, ChatGPT remains a money furnace, with a large majority of users not paying for subscriptions. OpenAI has been planning to expand advertising into the platform but hasn’t settled on solutions, as inserting too many ads into chatbot interactions risks shattering the illusions that make them compelling.

In contrast, feeds full of recommendations represent exactly where people expect to encounter marketing and also where some of OpenAI’s biggest competitors, now racing for AI supremacy and chatbot users, made their money in the first place.

OpenAI’s shift toward products designed to work asynchronously rather than responding to questions reflects a broader change, with features like ChatGPT Agent or Codex aiming to make ChatGPT feel more like an assistant rather than a chatbot.

Competition from News Products and Personal Assistants

It’s hard to overlook how Pulse could compete with existing news products such as Apple News, paid newsletters, or traditional journalism outlets, though product lead Fry doesn’t expect Pulse to replace various news apps people use, and the feature cites sources with links the same way ChatGPT Search does.

Pulse differs from Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini in personalization approach—Pulse leans heavily on ChatGPT Memory and chat history plus lightweight feedback, while Copilot and Gemini personalize using organizational and account data generally with admin policies in business contexts. Pulse focuses on a concise set of mobile cards rather than a feed or inbox, while Copilot and Gemini are more embedded in email, calendar, and productivity apps.

The Verdict: Incremental Evolution Rather Than Revolution?

Sam Altman’s excitement about Pulse as ChatGPT’s best feature appears overstated when examining both technical implementation and user reception. The feature represents competent execution of well-established recommendation feed technology rather than the paradigm shift Altman describes.

Pulse delivers genuine value for specific use cases—users actively managing complex schedules and long-term projects benefit from overnight synthesis and morning briefings. Students testing the feature reported moments of genuine utility when the AI connected dots between disparate conversations.

However, regular ChatGPT users aren’t sharing Sam ‘s enthusiasm at comparable levels to previous breakthrough features. Privacy concerns dominate discussion rather than excitement about capabilities. The Pro-only pricing creates an immediate barrier preventing viral adoption and testing at scale that characterized successful features like Voice Mode.

The feature’s success remains uncertain. Computing costs preventing broader rollout signal OpenAI hasn’t solved efficiency challenges, while user resistance to proactive AI notifications suggests behavioral adoption hurdles. Pulse may find its audience among executives and knowledge workers willing to pay premium prices for daily intelligence briefings, but positioning this as ChatGPT’s future direction overpromises what amounts to a specialized productivity tool.

Altman’s reasoning about transitioning from reactive to proactive AI holds theoretical merit. Implementation through a recommendation feed, however, offers little innovation beyond applying decade-old platform strategies to ChatGPT’s interface. Whether users embrace this vision or prefer ChatGPT as an on-demand tool rather than an always-on assistant will determine if Sam Altman’s favorite feature becomes widely beloved or remains a niche offering for high-paying subscribers.

If you are interested in this topic, we suggest you check our articles:

• What is AI Infrastructure? A Detailed Guide on Key Components
• 10 Real Life Examples of Sustainable AI in Action
• AI-Powered Supercomputers: Advancing Technology and Innovation

Sources: OpenAI, WindowsCentral

Written by Alius Noreika