One thing worth your time

Ai that turns up without being asked

ChatGPT will now run jobs on a schedule for free accounts. You get three active ones. Each can run once, or repeat up to once a day, inside a rough window: morning, afternoon or night. Exact times and hourly runs still need a paid plan.

Use one for a Monday plan, a Friday summary, or a nudge to chase unpaid invoices. You can share a task too, so someone else can copy it into their own account.

→ OpenAI’s guide to scheduled tasks

One prompt to try

Your Monday check-in, on a timer

Save this as a scheduled task, not a one-off chat. It arrives Monday morning, asks you three questions, and turns your answers into the week’s plan. Once a day is plenty on the free plan.

Every Monday morning, ask me these three questions, one at a time.
1. What did you say you would do last week and did not?
2. Who are you waiting on a reply from?
3. What is the one thing that must happen this week?
Then turn my answers into a plan for [MY BUSINESS], five bullets at most.

Set it once. It will be waiting for you next Monday.

One thing to ignore

The Ai that logs into websites for you

The same update let ChatGPT sign in to some websites for you and keep working, in a mode called Work. The examples OpenAI gives are American admin: renewing a passport, booking a driving-licence appointment, checking medical costs on an insurance portal.

It needs a Plus or Pro plan. OpenAI says it will always ask you to confirm before anything consequential, like a reservation or a payment. So it is not quietly doing your admin. Get the free timer working first.

One thing worth your time

Research that runs while you do something else

Gemini has a mode called Deep Research. You give it a question, it reads dozens of pages, then writes you a report with the links it used. It takes five to ten minutes, and you can close the tab while it runs. Google lists two requirements: be 18, be signed in. Free accounts get a daily limit.

Point it at supplier shortlists, competitor prices, or a rule you need to understand. Read the links before you act.

→ Google’s guide to Deep Research

One prompt to try

Get the job out of your head

Every owner has three or four jobs that live only in their head. Ai will not do them for you, but it will turn a rough description into something a new person could follow.

Turn this into a checklist someone else could follow.
The job: [what it is], done [how often].
How I do it now: [describe it roughly, in any order].
The bit people get wrong: [what you always have to fix].
Write it as numbered steps in plain English, twelve at most.

Start with the one you would hate to explain twice.

One thing to ignore

The panic that free Ai is being taken away

On 18 August Microsoft retired three things from the Copilot app: Podcasts, Group Chat, and its own deep research mode. The coverage read like the free tier is being squeezed and a subscription is the answer.

Microsoft’s own page says you can still chat, create images and upload files for free. One feature is gone from the free app, and the same job is free in Gemini. Nothing here needs your card.

One thing worth your time

Free ChatGPT, with no message limit

On 6 August OpenAI said free ChatGPT is moving to unlimited text chats, on a newer model. The Think button, which makes it work a harder question over before answering, reached free accounts on the web on 14 August. Uploads, images and voice keep their own limits.

The habit worth changing: stop asking one question and closing the tab. Ask again, push back on the first answer, and press Think when it matters.

→ OpenAI’s release notes

One prompt to try

Make it mark its own homework

Now the message limit is gone, the second question costs you nothing. Send this one straight after the first answer, before you sign, send or spend anything on it.

Now check your own answer before I use it.
What I asked for: [the job, in one line].
List what you assumed, what you are unsure about,
and anything I should verify myself.
Then fix the weak parts and tell me what changed.

The second answer is usually the one you send.

One thing to ignore

The panic about ads in ChatGPT

Ads are now live in ChatGPT in the UK, on the free and Go plans. Cue the worry that its answers are now bought. They are not. OpenAI’s own page says ads sit below the answer, are labelled sponsored, and run on separate systems advertisers cannot use to shape a response. Treat a sponsored box like any other advert. Switching tools over it costs more than it saves.

One thing worth your time

Free Ai training, already paid for

The government runs a free training offer called AI Skills Boost, open to any UK adult and focused right now on smaller firms, where Ai use lags behind bigger organisations. The courses are built by Google, Microsoft and Amazon among others, and checked against a national skills benchmark. They run from twenty minutes to a day. Pick one that matches a job you actually do. There is a badge at the end if you want one.

→ The AI Skills Hub

One prompt to try

Tell customers your prices are going up

A price rise is the message owners rewrite five times and still send late. The wording is the hard part, not the decision. Give the Ai the facts and let it hold the tone.

Write a short note telling my customers my prices are going up.
I run [type of business]. Prices go from [old price] to [new price] on [date].
The reason, in plain terms: [reason]. Most have been with me [how long].
Tone: warm, straight, no apology and no waffle. Under 150 words.
Then give me two lines to say if someone pushes back.

Send it early. A date people can plan for lands better than a surprise.

One thing to ignore

Letting an Ai browser loose in your accounts

The pitch of the moment is a browser that does the job for you: book the travel, fill the form, chase the order. Reading and summarising, fine. Signed into your bank or your email, no. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said last December that these attacks, where instructions hidden inside a web page hijack your Ai, may never be fully fixed. Do the clicking yourself.

One thing worth your time

A helper that already knows your business

Gemini’s free plan includes Gems: custom versions of Gemini you set up once. Write the instructions in plain English (what you do, who you serve, how you like to sound), add a file or two, save it. Every chat with that Gem starts from there, so you stop pasting in the same background. Free with a Google account, built on a computer at gemini.google.com. Google upgraded the free model on 21 July, so it runs on the newer one.

→ Google on Gems

One prompt to try

Chase a late invoice without the awkwardness

Chasing money is the job owners put off longest, usually because the wording feels awkward. Give the Ai the facts and let it hold the tone for you. Fill in the brackets, read it once, send.

Write a polite chaser for an unpaid invoice.
Invoice [number] for [amount], sent [date], due [date], now [X] days late.
The customer is [name] and we have worked with them for [how long].
Tone: friendly, direct, no apology and no threat. Ask for a payment date.
Keep it under 120 words, then give me a shorter version for next week.

Save it as a Gem and it is ready every time.

One thing to ignore

The warning that Google punishes Ai writing

You have been told that if Ai writes your website, Google will bury it. Google’s own guidance says the opposite: “Appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines.” What it acts on is content mass-produced to game rankings, which was always the problem, whoever typed it. So draft with Ai, then do the part that counts: make it specific, accurate and worth reading.