![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/7f7cdbe52fa95de22d95d414c799a8d099-screentime-092625.rhorizontal.w1100.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
This week, Sam Altman announced<\/a> his \u201cfavorite feature of ChatGPT so far.\u201d It\u2019s called Pulse, and according Altman, it \u201cworks for you overnight\u201d by \u201cthinking about your interests, your connected data, your recent chats, and more.\u201d In the morning, you get a \u201ccustom-generated set of stuff you might be interested in,\u201d akin to something a \u201csuper-competent personal assistant\u201d might prepare. More broadly, he says, it represents \u201ca shift from being all reactive to being significantly proactive, and extremely personalized.\u201d And then, a recommendation: \u201cIt performs super well if you tell ChatGPT more about what\u2019s important to you.\u201d<\/p>\n These are the words of a CEO, of course, so we should expect him to be in sales mode. They\u2019re also the words of a person who has not just adopted the language and jargon of generative AI but done so to the exclusion of everything else. In the narrow context of ChatGPT, and through the personified language of generative AI, Pulse can be given agency, ascribed new talents and qualities, and imbued with novelty. Most other people, however, will look at Pulse and see something less futuristic than familiar: a recommendation feed.<\/p>\n Now in preview: ChatGPT Pulse<\/p>\n This is a new experience where ChatGPT can proactively deliver personalized daily updates from your chats, feedback, and connected apps like your calendar.<\/p>\n Rolling out to Pro users on mobile today. pic.twitter.com\/tWqdUIjNn3<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 OpenAI (@OpenAI) September 25, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n A recent study of ChatGPT use helped clarify<\/a> what the service\u2019s users are most commonly getting from the chatbot, outlining strong consultative habits: a lot of Google replacement, plenty of quick questions and advice, and some task completion. These interactions all depend on the user initiating in the first place, which, if your goal is to maximize engagement and\/or draw people into a more comprehensive platform \u2014\u00a0to make your product the beginning and end of a user\u2019s computing experience \u2014\u00a0is limiting. People spend lots of time searching, chatting, and working on their devices, sure. But they also spend a lot of time scrolling. Pulse looks like an attempt to secure at least some of the massive amount of attention captured by feeds and to turn ChatGPT into something more than a tool you can consult\u00a0\u2014\u00a0specifically, into a source of content you can consume.<\/p>\n To back up a little bit: Before the post-ChatGPT AI boom, which has been defined by large language models and chatbot interfaces, the tech industry\u2019s conversations about AI and machine learning centered on recommendations. That was the case for good reason. Platforms that deployed surveillant recommendation engines were taking over the world. Through the 2010s, social platforms drifted from chronological feeds to algorithmic recommendations, drawing on users\u2019 data and behaviors to show them personalized material. TikTok took this model a step further<\/a>, treating social connections as firmly secondary to AI-driven learning and recommendation (or, put another way, embracing the model of digital ad targeting for the entire social-media experience).<\/p>\n You can hear, in Altman\u2019s announcement, the description of something akin to a TikTok feed: a \u201ccustom-generated set of stuff you might be interested in.\u201d For the logical endpoint of compounded \u201cgeneration\u201d looks like, Meta helpfully announced a cautionary tale in the form of a new AI-feed product called Vibes:<\/p>\n Excited to share Vibes \u2014 a new feed in the Meta AI app for short-form, AI-generated videos. pic.twitter.com\/iVMa86Li7s<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Alexandr Wang (@alexandr_wang) September 25, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Anyway, an even closer cousin to Pulse, given the use of ChatGPT as a Google replacement, is the algorithmic homepage popularized by products like Google Now, introduced in 2012 with the following<\/a> description:<\/p>\n It tells you today\u2019s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, when the next train will arrive as you\u2019re standing on the platform, or your favorite team\u2019s score while they\u2019re playing. And the best part? All of this happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them.<\/p>\n By 2016, after Google had abandoned the Now branding but incorporated the features across its product lineup, the company said<\/a> that it was using \u201cmachine learning algorithms to better anticipate what\u2019s interesting and important to you.\u201d The aim was to show Google users \u201csports highlights, top news, engaging videos, new music, stories to read and more\u201d\u00a0based not only on their interactions with Google but also \u201cwhat\u2019s trending in your area and around the world. The more you use Google, the better your feed will be.\u201d By then, it had become obvious that personalized recommendation engines were ascendant and that they\u2019d be incorporated into basically any software product that could accommodate them. And why not? At their best, they were useful and therefore sticky; at worst, they produced low-value engagement that could still be monetized.<\/p>\n Early reviews<\/a> from heavy ChatGPT users suggest the concept makes sense for them: Pulse is like \u201ca newsfeed tailored to recent conversations,\u201d one writes, saying that he wants to \u201cdump even more information and context and app connections into ChatGPT so I can get an even better daily feed.\u201d It\u2019s easy enough to see how populating ChatGPT with recommendations could increase time spent on the app by casual users, too.<\/p>\n In tech product terms, in other words, this is OpenAI doing an obvious and precedented thing with the growing piles of data it\u2019s accumulating on its users: feeding it back to them in the form of content. Pulse also has specific business uses beyond encouraging more ChatGPT use. Despite (and in part because of) its popularity, ChatGPT is still a money furnace<\/a>, and a large majority of its users don\u2019t pay for subscriptions. OpenAI has been planning to expand advertising into the platform for a while but hasn\u2019t yet settled on its solutions. Inserting too many ads into chatbot interactions risks shattering the illusions that help make them compelling in the first place (not that companies won\u2019t try). In contrast, feeds full of recommendations \u2014\u00a0collections of algorithmically recommended content \u2014 are exactly where people expect to encounter marketing. They\u2019re also where some of OpenAI\u2019s biggest competitors, all now racing for AI supremacy and chatbot users, made their money in the first place.<\/p>\n Sign Up for John Herrman column alerts<\/p>\n Get an email alert as soon as a new article publishes.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n