I tried Gemini's 'scheduled actions' to automate my AI – the potential is enormous (but Google has work to do)

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Gemini can run prompts on a schedule for paying Pro users.
• Email and Workspace integrations do not actually work.
• The feature shows promise but feels unfinished.

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Last year, I wrote about ChatGPT’s Tasks feature, which allows the AI to perform scheduled tasks. The feature was surprisingly limited and stubbornly refused to follow directions. Not to be outdone, Google Gemini added a similar feature called scheduled actions back in June.

Scheduled actions are only available to paying Gemini Pro and Ultra users. Since I upgraded to the Pro plan last month, I now have access to scheduled actions.

Also: Stop using ChatGPT for everything: I use these AI models for research, coding, and more

You know what that means: It’s time to test it out. TL;DR, this feature is currently very limited and fairly disappointing. But it has enormous potential — see if you don’t agree.

In this article, I’ll show you how to set up a scheduled action and explain its capabilities. Then I’ll share with you a bunch of ideas for scheduled actions you might want to create. Finally, I’ll delve into a list of the limitations and offer suggestions on how Google could easily enhance this feature to make it a powerhouse.

Let’s get started.

How to schedule an action

Creating a scheduled action is straightforward. All you need to do is embed a time and frequency statement in your prompt. For example, you might say “Every day at 5 a.m., do the following…” or “Every Tuesday…”

This will tell Gemini that you want the action to be scheduled, and it will add it to the schedule actions manager. According to Gemini support, you’re limited to 10 active scheduled actions, so choose carefully.

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As an example, I modified the weather prompt I used with ChatGPT Tasks, and fed it into Gemini.

Every day at 5 a.m., perform the following steps strictly and output results sequentially:

• Print a line containing the text: ‘Your daily weather brief for ” in H1. Replace with today’s date.
• Print a heading: ‘Today’s weather’ followed by the weather condition and temperature range for Salem, Oregon, today. Put both the condition and temperature on the same line.
• Print an h3 heading: ‘Sunrise/sunset’ followed by the sunrise and sunset times for Salem, Oregon, today. Put both sunrise and sunset on the same line.
• Print an h3 heading: ‘Air quality’ followed by the air quality for Salem, Oregon, today.
• Print an h3 heading: ‘Advisories’ followed by any advisories for Salem, Oregon, today. If there are no advisories, display ‘No advisories today.’
• Print an h3 heading: ‘Commute’ followed by any recommendations for commuting in Salem, Oregon, today, particularly based on weather-related issues.
• Print an h3 heading: ‘Outdoor activities’ followed by any recommendations for outdoor activities in Salem, Oregon, based on today’s weather.
• Print an H3 heading: “Upcoming week” followed by a single line summary for the next 7 days, starting with tomorrow, containing the day, the temperature range, and any weather conditions. Present it as compactly as possible. Bold the day names.

Do not proceed to the next step until the previous one is complete.

It may take a few minutes for Gemini to chew on the request, but it will eventually come back and tell you the action has been scheduled. Here’s what it looks like when it runs. Nice, right?

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How to modify a scheduled action

Once scheduled, you can modify the action by going down the the Settings menu in the lower left of the chat window and choosing Scheduled Actions.

You’ll be dropped into the scheduled actions manager, where you can turn on, turn off, or modify an action.

If you click the pencil icon, you’ll be able to edit the action.

This screen lets you customize your action in the following ways:

1. You can change the name of the action. This is what shows up in the Scheduled Actions Manager.
2. You can modify your original prompt. Note that Gemini removes the schedule phrase from the prompt. This is now just the expected action, not the time trigger.
3. Here, you can modify the time trigger. You can choose Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. The time field adjusts accordingly.
4. You can also delete your action completely.

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Overall, the action editor is well thought out and feature-rich.

What else can you do?

What sort of tasks would benefit from the automation capabilities provided by Gemini’s scheduled actions? Here are 15 ideas to use as starting points.

1. Blog planning: Receive five fresh blog post topics every Monday morning.
2. Social media: Get weekly social media caption ideas for your upcoming brand events.
3. Creative prompts: Receive a daily fiction writing prompt to start your morning routine.
4. Newsletter curation: Get a weekly summary of niche industry news for your subscribers.
5. Headline generation: Receive 10 SEO-friendly headline options for your weekly draft articles.
6. Language practice: Get a daily vocabulary word and example sentence in your target language.
7. Skill learning: Receive a daily bite-sized lesson on a complex technical subject.
8. Inspiration digest: Get a weekly list of trending topics in your specific field.
9. Video research: Receive a weekly summary of top-performing YouTube videos in your niche.
10. Meal planning: Receive a healthy meal plan and grocery list every Saturday.
11. Workout routines: Get a daily exercise plan tailored to your specific fitness goals.
12. Financial summary: Get a weekly briefing on stock market trends for your portfolio.
13. Sports updates: Receive a summary of scores and stats after every game night.
14. Gift planning: Get a monthly reminder of upcoming birthdays and personalized gift ideas.
15. Recipe discovery: Receive a new seasonal recipe to try every Sunday afternoon.

Image limitations

Unfortunately, there are also some glaring limitations in what the scheduled actions feature can do. I found they fall into two categories: images and notifications.

When it comes to images, if you mention an image in your scheduled prompt, Gemini will only deliver that image. For the weather prompt above, I requested that Gemini “Generate an image using Nano Banana that visually represents today’s weather in Salem, Oregon. The image should include elements relevant to the weather (e.g., rain, sunny skies) and a recognizable landmark like the Oregon State Capitol.”

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Regardless of whether I placed the additional instruction at the beginning or the end of the prompt, Gemini stopped generating text-based responses and attempted to shoehorn the text data into the image.

Not only did the text miss the mark, but Gemini decided to misinterpret the Nano Banana instruction and put a banana in the picture. That’s also not what the Oregon statehouse looks like.

Gemini does get style points for giving the banana a raincoat and an umbrella.

Notification limitations

However, the real frustration with scheduled actions is how it does notifications. If you schedule an action using the desktop interface, the only notification you will get is a little blue dot in the corner of your chats list.

You have to open Gemini and look for the little blue dot. If you schedule an action using the mobile app, you will get a device notification (depending on the device’s overall notification settings). But if you schedule an action on your desktop, you won’t get a notification on your device (and vice versa).

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I tried to get scheduled actions to send me an email. I was first informed I’d need to connect to Google Workspace to make that work.

So, I did. I flipped on the Workspace toggle.

After I set up a prompt to send me the top news stories on a schedule, I got this reply from Gemini.

However, despite Gemini claiming to have sent me an email, it did not. I scoured everything, including my filters, the server, my spam folder, and more. Nothing showed up. So I asked Gemini why I didn’t see the email that it said it sent me.

As you can see, Gemini finally fessed up and admitted it couldn’t send me an email.

Disappointed, but hopeful

All this seems like an unforced error. After all, Google owns Chrome, so getting Gemini to display a Chrome notification shouldn’t be a big deal. For that matter, Google owns Gmail, so the fact that it couldn’t use or send me a Gmail message is also a bit of a bummer.

Without these features, scheduled actions seem far less useful. It would be great to get an email summary of major news, industry trends, or headline suggestions. But having to launch Gemini and look for the little blue dot seems to defeat the purpose of having something automated.

Also: I spent hours testing ChatGPT Tasks – and its refusal to follow directions was mildly terrifying

I’d also like to see Gemini be able to send REST requests or make API calls, because then you could link the AI to scheduled tasks, and have those tasks go beyond summarizing or suggesting little blocks of text. You could have it watch for certain situations and then reach out into the world to make something happen.

I’m sure this is the future of such a feature. For now, scheduled actions will run a prompt on a schedule. But that’s about it.

What about you? Have you tried Gemini’s scheduled actions yet, or experimented with similar automation features in other AI tools? What kinds of recurring tasks were you hoping to automate, and did the feature meet those expectations? Do the current limitations around notifications, images, or integrations make it less useful for you, or do you still see practical value in it as-is? What improvements would most change whether you’d rely on scheduled actions day to day? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

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