Always-On Agents: Study Help That Comes to You¶
Most of the time, an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant waits for you: nothing happens until you open it and type. The assistants on this page start the conversation. You describe a job once and choose when it runs, and the assistant does it on time, or when something happens, and sends you the result: a reminder that names today's objectives, a practice question on this morning's lecture, a look at the week ahead on Sunday evening. In a heavy block, that can be the difference between making a study plan and still following it in week six.
Most of the work is in the standing instructions, the lever that Standing Setups makes permanent, now with a clock attached. This page starts with scheduled tasks, which some assistants offer on a free plan, then three setups worth copying, and then the full agents, which keep working toward a goal on their own.
What It Can Do for You¶
The jobs that suit an assistant on a schedule are small, regular, and easy to check:
- A reminder that carries the plan. Not just "time to study," but which objectives, how many practice questions, and when the block ends, taken from a schedule you have already made.
- A daily practice question. One or two questions on today's lecture, so the recalling starts the same evening instead of the week before the exam.
- A weekly plan check. On Sunday evening, what the week holds, what you planned, and what slipped, so the week starts with a decision rather than a backlog.
- A look ahead. The objectives for tomorrow's sessions, so you arrive having seen them once.
- An exam countdown. The days before an exam, one day at a time, with the buffer days kept clear.
- A check-in that keeps you going. A short question at the end of the day about what you got through. Your answer is what lets the plan adjust to the week you actually had.
A study week with an assistant that checks in
- Sunday eveningThe week ahead: sessions, quizzes, and what slipped
- Each morningToday's block, with its objectives named
- Each eveningTwo questions on today's lecture
Your part, every time: answer, recall, and adjust the plan.
None of these does the studying. Each is a nudge with the right material attached, and the recalling, the choice of what to skip, and the decision to rest are still yours. Module 4: AI and Your Learning explains why the questions are worth more than any summary the same assistant could send.
Start Free: Scheduled Tasks¶
A scheduled task is a saved request with a clock. Your instructions are stored, and at the time you set, the assistant runs them as a new conversation, with whatever is current that day, and tells you the result. The companies call it different things (automations, schedules, scheduled tasks), but it works the same way everywhere, and on some plans it costs nothing. Each entry below, read from the company's own pages, gives the plan it needs, how often it can run, how it reaches you, what it connects to, and how to get your course notes into it.
Each is offered in Antigua and Barbuda:
- ChatGPT: on OpenAI's list of supported countries (source)
- Claude: on Anthropic's list of supported regions (source)
- Gemini: on Google's lists for Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra (source)
- Grok: xAI publishes no list of countries; its terms exclude only places under United States sanctions, and the Grok app is listed in Apple's App Store for Antigua and Barbuda (source)
Read at each company's own pages on October 24, 2026.
Scheduled Tasks in ChatGPT¶
ChatGPT runs a request on its own, once or on a schedule, and notifies you with the result; a monitoring task speaks up only when something it watches changes.
- Plan: Every plan in OpenAI's help center, Free included, with 3 active tasks on Free and Go, 5 on Plus, 10 on Business and Edu, and 15 on Pro and Enterprise; OpenAI's pricing table lists tasks from Go. Exact times and hourly tasks need a paid plan, and app-triggered tasks need Work, on Plus or higher.
- Setting it up: Ask in any chat, for example "Every weekday at 7 in the evening, send me two practice questions on the objectives below," or open Scheduled in the sidebar to edit, pause, or delete one.
- How often: On Free, at most once a day, in a window such as morning, afternoon, or night; on paid plans, at an exact time, or up to every hour.
- How it tells you: A push notification, an email, or both (Settings, then Notifications); for phone notifications, create the task in the phone app.
- Connects to: Connected apps your account supports, which OpenAI lists as including Gmail, Slack, and GitHub; an action that would send a message or change data may wait for your approval.
- Your course notes: Paste the objectives or your notes into the instructions, because a task made inside a project cannot read the project's uploaded files.
- Worth knowing: A task can be shared as a link, so each member of a study group can schedule a copy; anyone who opens the link can read its full instructions, so write them as you would a message to the group.
From OpenAI's own page; every plan is on the ChatGPT (OpenAI) page.
Schedules in Gemini Apps¶
Gemini runs a prompt you choose on a schedule and has the answer ready at your delivery time; Google's own examples include a daily practice quiz.
- Plan: Rolling out to every personal Google Account, Free included, with Keep Activity on; work and school accounts need a qualifying Google Workspace edition.
- Setting it up: At gemini.google.com or in the phone app, write the prompt with when and how often it should run, such as "Every weekday at 7 in the evening, quiz me on the topics below"; Scheduled in the sidebar lists, pauses, and edits them.
- How often: Daily, weekly, or monthly, at a time you set; Gemini prepares the answer within the hour before, so it suits quizzes and summaries more than fast-changing news.
- How it tells you: A notification in the phone app; on the web, the chat is marked unread and listed under Scheduled.
- Connects to: Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and your other Connected Apps, once you connect them.
- Your course notes: Write the week's topics or objectives into the prompt itself.
- Worth knowing: Each schedule keeps its own chat, so you can answer a quiz there, or tell Gemini to change the time or the topics.
- For students: Google AI Plus student offer, for eligible college students aged 18 or over: Google AI Plus for one year at no cost, with student status verified through SheerID and checked again each year. Redeem by December 31, 2026, on a personal Google Account rather than a school-issued one; a payment method is required, and it renews as a paid plan unless canceled.
From Google's own page; every plan is on the Gemini (Google) page.
Automations in Grok¶
Grok runs a job you describe once, on a schedule or when a matching email arrives, and reports back; every run is a fresh conversation with the same instructions and current information, saved to the automation's history.
- Plan: Scheduled automations on every plan, Free included; email triggers with Premium and higher (SuperGrok on the earlier plans).
- Setting it up: Open Automations at grok.com/automations or in the phone app, or ask in a chat, for example "every weekday evening, send me two practice questions from my notes," and Grok sets one up; Run now tests it straight away, and the Automations page has templates to start from.
- How often: Once, daily, on weekdays, weekly, monthly, or yearly, at a time you choose in your time zone, or when an email matching a sender, recipient, or subject arrives.
- How it tells you: By email, an app notification, both, or neither.
- Connects to: Any connector you mention with @ in the instructions, such as Gmail and Google Calendar, Google Drive, OneDrive, or Outlook, and your skills.
- Your course notes: Attach your syllabus or objectives to the automation, so every run starts from them.
- Worth knowing: Open a run to read its whole conversation, and reply there to pick up where Grok left off.
From xAI's own page; every plan is on the Grok (xAI) page.
Scheduled Tasks in Claude¶
Claude runs a task you describe once, on a schedule you choose, and has the finished result waiting, with a notification on your phone; it keeps running in the cloud while your computer is asleep.
- Plan: Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise; not Free.
- Setting it up: In a conversation, describe the task and how often it should run, answer any questions Claude asks, then check the name, schedule, and instructions it proposes and choose Schedule; Scheduled in the sidebar lists, pauses, and edits your tasks.
- How often: Hourly, daily, on weekdays, weekly, or only when you start it.
- How it tells you: A notification on your phone when a task finishes or needs your input; upcoming and past runs are listed under Scheduled.
- Connects to: The connectors, skills, and plugins in your Claude account, such as Google Drive or Microsoft 365, and the files saved to your account.
- Your course notes: Create the task inside your course project, which keeps its own scheduled tasks beside the course's files, instructions, and memory.
- Worth knowing: A task that needs files or apps on your own computer runs only there, and only while the desktop app is open; one that works from your Claude account runs with no device online.
From Anthropic's own page; every plan is on the Claude (Anthropic) page.
Three Setups to Start With¶
Each setup works with any of the scheduled tasks above. Start with one, run it for a week, and add the next only when the first has earned its place on your phone.
A Study Reminder That Carries the Plan¶
A reminder that only says "study" is easy to swipe away; one that names the objectives, the number of questions, and the time the block ends is a plan you can start at once. The plan comes first: the Study Schedule Builder turns your syllabus and teaching calendar into one, and the reminder delivers it a day at a time.
- Build the plan with the Study Schedule Builder, and keep its day-by-day part.
- Create a task for each weekday morning, at the time you usually start, so it arrives when you can act on it.
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Paste in instructions like these, with your plan underneath:
Every weekday at 6:30 in the morning, send me today's block from my study plan below: the objectives by name, the number of practice questions, and the time the block ends, in under 80 words. On an exam day, send only the exam and its time. Stop after the last day of the plan.
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Run it once now, and read what it sends before you rely on tomorrow's.
It needs no connections at all, since the plan is in the instructions, and a reminder that cannot read your inbox or change your calendar cannot get either wrong.
Near an exam, the same task becomes a countdown: give it the exam date and the days left in your plan, and it sends one day at a time, with the buffer days kept clear.
A Daily Practice Question from Your Own Notes¶
Recalling an answer builds memory that rereading does not, and it works best spread out, starting soon after you first learn something. A question that arrives the evening of the lecture does both. The questions are only as good as their source, so give the task the lecture's objectives or your own notes: your in-house exams are written from your school's lectures and slides, and practice built from them fits those exams better than questions drawn from a model's general knowledge of the subject.
- Each week, gather that week's learning objectives, or a page of your own notes for each lecture.
- Create a task for each weekday evening.
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Give it the material, by the route its entry above describes, and instructions like these:
Every weekday at 7 in the evening, write two practice questions in the style of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) exams from today's objectives below: a short clinical vignette, five options, and one best answer. Send only the questions. When I reply with my answers, tell me which are right, explain each in three sentences, and name the objective it tests. If the material below does not cover an objective, say so instead of guessing.
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Answer before you look anything up, and check any explanation that surprises you against your notes.
For a longer session on the same material, the NBME-Style Question Tutor runs the same drill at length.
A Weekly Plan Check¶
Once a week, the assistant looks at what is coming and what happened, then asks you one question. This is the setup that gains most from a connection, because it is far more useful when it can see your calendar.
- Connect your calendar, if your assistant offers it and you are comfortable with it reading your events; if not, paste in the coming week's teaching calendar instead.
- Create a task for Sunday evening.
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Give it the plan you are working from, and instructions like these:
Every Sunday at 6 in the evening, look at my calendar for the coming week and at my study plan below. In under 120 words, tell me the sessions, quizzes, and deadlines ahead, which planned blocks clash with them, and one thing to move or drop. Then ask me what I got through last week, and adjust next week's plan from my answer.
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Answer its question honestly. It can only adjust to what you tell it.
After an assessment, the Study Plan Progress Check asks the bigger question: whether the plan is working at all.
Writing Standing Instructions That Hold Up¶
A scheduled task is a request you will not be there to clarify, so it has to stand on its own. Five parts cover almost every case:
- When. The day, the time, and your time zone, so a trip home does not move every reminder.
- The job. One thing, said the way you would say it to a tutor.
- Your material. The objectives, notes, or plan it works from. Without them, the assistant falls back on its general knowledge of the subject.
- What to send back. The format and the length. A message you read on a phone between sessions should fit on one screen.
- When to stop. An end date, or the exam that closes the block. A task with no end keeps running long after it has stopped being useful.
Two sentences earn a place in almost any study task: "If the material does not cover it, say so," which keeps the assistant from filling a gap with a guess, and "Wait for my answer before explaining," which keeps a question a question.
One set of instructions, a new run each time
The saved task
Each run is a new conversation, so the instructions have to make sense with nothing explained.
Integrations: Calendar, Email, Files, and Course Notes¶
Connecting an app lets a task see what you see there. Each connection makes a task more useful and gives it more to read, so connect one for a reason:
- Calendar. Lets a weekly check see your sessions and exams, and a morning reminder skip a quiz day. Reading is all most study tasks need; a task that can also create or move events can do so while you are asleep.
- Email. Most useful for a digest of course announcements, so a changed room or a moved quiz does not get buried. Email is also where text you did not write reaches the assistant, and a message written to steer an assistant is the classic way to misuse one (prompt injection). A task that reads your inbox is safest kept to reading and summarizing, with nothing sent on its own.
- Files and cloud drives. Let a task work from a document you keep current, such as your study plan, instead of a copy pasted in once.
- Course notes. The connection that matters most for practice questions, and the one the assistants handle most differently: some take files attached to the task, some work inside a project that holds your materials, and some need the material pasted into the instructions. Each entry above says which.
A connected inbox or folder can also hold things that have no part in a study task, such as patient information from a rotation or other students' records, which the AI Responsible Use Policy covers. Connecting only what the job needs keeps them out of reach without your having to think about it. On rotations the practice itself works the same way: a case stripped to a teaching abstraction, an age band and a presentation pattern, is what you are practicing on, and Module 9: Clinical Contexts covers what changes when a real patient is involved.
The Full Agents¶
A scheduled task runs one request on a timer. An always-on agent takes on a responsibility. You give it a goal, such as keeping a revision plan current through a block, and it decides when to check, works in its own browser and on its own computer in the company's cloud, acts in the apps you connect, and comes back with results or with decisions that need you. They need a paid plan and do more on their own, so they reward the same care as any agent: a narrow job, only the access it needs, and its first results read closely before you rely on it. Their makers are plain about two limits: a schedule that runs while you are offline can finish an action before you can stop it, and stopping an agent does not undo what it has already done. Both are reasons to start with work you could undo.
Not offered in Antigua and Barbuda yet: Claude Duet, a separate app where Claude works as a proactive agent, checking your connected accounts every few hours and messaging you when something needs you (a research preview by waitlist, starting with Pro and Max subscribers in the United States; source).
Dots in ChatGPT¶
An always-on agent you give a standing responsibility, such as keeping a revision plan current through a block; it works between conversations on its own computer and browser in OpenAI's cloud, decides when to check back, and messages you with results or with decisions that need you.
- Plan: Rolling out gradually to Pro 100, Pro 200, and Pro 500 (users over 18, outside the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland), Business Premium, and Enterprise (off until an administrator turns it on). Not on Free, Go, or Plus; Edu is not listed. Conversations with a dot do not count toward ChatGPT usage limits; Work and Codex tasks it starts do.
- Setting it up: Create your dot in the ChatGPT phone app, the desktop app, or a desktop browser, describe the responsibility, share the material it needs, and say which changes deserve your attention; for an update at a set time, give a time zone and an end date, and ask it to confirm the schedule.
- When it works: It decides when to pause and pick work up again; recurring work it has taken on is listed under Scheduled.
- How it tells you: In ChatGPT, Slack, or Microsoft Teams, or on a voice call, wherever you tell it to send each kind of update.
- Connects to: Supported plugins enabled for your account, such as Gmail and Google Drive, within their existing permissions, and one personal computer, if you connect it.
- Worth knowing: OpenAI says a dot can make mistakes and that stopping a task does not undo what it has already done, so review important results and their sources before you act on them.
From OpenAI's own page; every plan is on the ChatGPT (OpenAI) page.
Claude Cowork¶
Hand Claude a whole task, such as turning a block's lecture notes into practice questions and a revision plan, and it keeps working in the cloud after you close your laptop, asks when something is unclear, and returns finished documents; schedule it, and the same task repeats.
- Plan: Paid plans; the merged "one Claude" experience is rolling out to Pro and Max first.
- Setting it up: In the Claude app, describe the outcome in any conversation where the combined chat and Cowork experience has reached you, or in Cowork itself; by default Claude asks before taking an action.
- When it works: Until the task is done, in the cloud, and again on a schedule if you set one.
- How it tells you: A notification on your phone when it finishes or needs your input.
- Connects to: The connectors and plugins in your Claude account, Claude in Chrome where you allow it, and folders on your computer that you connect through the desktop app.
- Your course notes: Work inside your course project, so every task starts from the course's files and instructions.
- Worth knowing: Anthropic's safety guidance turns on two questions, what Claude can read and what it is allowed to do, and a study task needs only a narrow answer to each.
From Anthropic's own page; every plan is on the Claude (Anthropic) page.
Tasks in Gemini (Formerly Gemini Spark)¶
Switch the box under the prompt from Chat to Task and describe a goal and when it should happen; Gemini works through the steps on its own across your Google apps, your files, and the web, once, on a schedule, when a matching email arrives, or when a topic it watches changes.
- Plan: Google AI Pro or Ultra on a personal account, 18 or over, with Keep Activity and Personal Intelligence on. Not on work or school accounts, and not in the European Economic Area, Nigeria, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom.
- Setting it up: At gemini.google.com, in the phone app, or in the Mac app, choose Task, describe the job and its timing, add files, Drive files, or a study notebook, and submit; typing "set up" or "interview me" in a task gets help with your first one.
- When it works: Once, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly; when an email matching a Gmail filter arrives; or when a topic such as local events or the news changes. Up to 15 run at a time.
- How it tells you: In the task's thread, whose work panel shows its progress and schedules; it asks you to take over for steps such as signing in.
- Connects to: Gmail (search, summaries, drafts, and replies), Calendar (events and invitations), Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep, and Google Tasks, through Connected Apps.
- Your course notes: Attach your notes, a file from Drive, or a study notebook to the task.
- Worth knowing: Google suggests not scheduling tasks you find sensitive, because a schedule that runs while you are offline may complete an unintended action before you can stop it.
From Google's own page; every plan is on the Gemini (Google) page.
Grok Bot¶
A named Bot with one job, working on its own cloud computer with a browser and files, so the work continues with your laptop closed; a method that works can be saved as a skill and run as a routine.
- Plan: Premium, Super, or Ultra on The X Subscription, drawing on the same weekly pool as Grok and Cursor; not Free or Plus. SuperGrok, SuperGrok Plus, and SuperGrok Heavy subscriptions connected to Cursor keep it, with its own usage, until they switch. An Enterprise version was announced on September 3, 2026.
- Setting it up: In the Grok Bot app, give a Bot its job and run the task once; when it is reliable, ask the Bot to save the method as a skill and then to run it on a schedule, confirming the time zone, what it reads, what it returns, and what needs your approval.
- When it works: Routines on a schedule, or after an event where that is supported; background routines run while your laptop is closed.
- How it tells you: In the Bot's conversation; emails and Slack messages come back as drafts for you to send or discard.
- Connects to: Apps and packaged skills installed from Connect apps in the sidebar, which every Bot on your account can use.
- Worth knowing: xAI's advice is to start with a one-time task, make it reliable, save the method as a skill, and only then automate it, because a routine repeats whatever the method does.
From xAI's own page; every plan is on the Grok (xAI) page.
Tips That Keep It Working¶
- Run it once now. Most assistants can run a task on demand. A misread instruction is cheap to fix today and costly to discover in exam week.
- Keep it on your own material. Questions built from your lectures and notes match what your in-house exams test, and a model's general knowledge does not know what your course emphasized.
- Make it ask, not tell. A question you answer from memory builds recall; a summary you read mostly does not.
- Let it read, not act. A study task rarely needs to send email or change your calendar. Anything a task may do on its own, it may do wrongly while you sleep.
- Check the first week. Compare its questions and explanations with your notes for a few days. An explanation is a claim to check, not a fact to memorize, and a week of questions that hold up has earned lighter checking.
- Give it an end date. A block ends, and its tasks should too. A countdown that knows the exam date stops itself.
- Delete what you stop reading. Some assistants pause a task you ignore; others keep sending. An unread reminder trains you to swipe away the next one.
- Mind the allowance. Each run draws on the same allowance as a chat, and a schedule may not run once that allowance is used up. A reminder or two questions costs little; a long daily research digest costs more.
- What it drafts is yours. Whatever a task writes for you, what you send or submit is yours, and so are its errors, which is why the checking is time well spent.
Back to: the AI Literacy Pathway; this page is the last step of its agent stage.
Content last reviewed October 24, 2026. Review dates are maintained as described on the About page.