Your first task

Start by typing what you want in one sentence. Pressing Send starts a chat, and the work happens there. Handing work off to run without you is a separate, deliberate choice — this page covers both, in that order.

1. Say what you want

Open the home screen and type the outcome, not the steps. “Turn this spreadsheet into a report I can send to my team” beats “open the file, then make a chart, then…”.

If you have material, give it to Else in the same breath. Three equivalent ways: the Attach files button, pasting (a screenshot from your clipboard gets named for you), or dragging files onto the composer. In a chat you can attach up to 5 files, each under 5 MB — documents, spreadsheets, slide decks, PDFs, images, text and source files. Anything else is refused up front, with the reason.

2. Set the run up, if you want to

Before you send, the panel headed This run — Just for what you’re about to send lets you shape that one run. Everything is already set to a sensible default, so you can skip this the first time.

• What it can use. All 13 built-in Add-ons are listed and marked Ready — web research, browser reading, file conversion, PDF reading, Word documents, spreadsheets, slide decks, visual design, generative art, code files, documents and a website builder. Untick anything you’d rather it didn’t touch. Connected Apps appear here too; ones you haven’t set up show as Connect in Apps.
• Check with me before big steps. Defaults to the strictest option, Before anything leaves this app.
• Spend limit for this run. Starts at $0.15, raisable to $5.00. The field’s label promises a pause, and on a chat that is not what happens: the number is recorded and shown back to you, and nothing acts on it. What ends a chat turn is a fixed per-turn ceiling you cannot see or change. The number you type is read only when you hand work off — see Spending limits before you rely on it either way.
• Which engine. Leave it on Auto (best value for each request), or pick Fast (cheapest acceptable answer), Smart (balanced quality, long context) or Max (deepest reasoning). If you want to be specific, Pick an exact engine opens the full list of engines with real supply.

Then send.

3. Watch it work

The run shows the stages it’s genuinely in. Planning the run always comes first. Others appear as they become real: Working in a secure browser if it needs the live web, Working in the secure workspace if it needs to open or produce files, and a verification stage at the end.

If it hits something only you can decide — an email to send, an action in a connected App that isn’t pre-approved, a spending ceiling reached — it stops and asks. Nothing runs and nothing is charged while it waits, and it waits as long as it takes: a parked question has no expiry. It will also ask genuine questions when the brief is ambiguous — up to three rounds in a working run, not endlessly.

4. Take the result

The answer arrives in the chat, formatted, ready to read. Anything it made as a file — report, spreadsheet, slide deck, image, PDF, website — shows up as a deliverable you can preview and download. A website arrives as an HTML file you download, not as a hosted address.

Handing a task off to run without you

Some work shouldn’t need you sitting there. Two places create a task:

1. A task card on the home screen — Spreadsheet to report, Deep research and others. Each card asks for a few specifics before it will start.
2. The composer on the Tasks screen, where you write the task yourself.

There you also choose whether it runs once or repeats — Just once, Every morning, Weekdays at 9am, Mondays at 9am, Every hour or Every 30 minutes. A task is work you hand off to run without you; a repeat is optional.

Handing work off is also the path where a limit is genuinely read. Settings → How it works → Ask before spending more than offers $0.10, $0.50, $1.00 or $5.00, and a task found above what you pick between steps stops and checks with you. It is a separate number from the field above the composer, and it applies to tasks started from the Tasks screen without a limit of their own.

One asymmetry to know: a task accepts text files only, up to 5 files and 100 KB in total. PDFs, Office files and images run in a live chat instead, so they can be mounted in the secure workspace. If you need those, stay in a chat.

Following and finishing a task

The task row tells you where it is in plain words: Making a plan, Working on it, Needs you, Paused, Done, or Couldn’t finish. Runs do fail; when one does, you still get the full record of what happened.

A finished task opens result-first: the answer, then its files, then the Receipt — what it cost and what share of the spend limit that used, auditable line by line. A Share control gives someone a read-only view of the run; your deliverable files stay yours and aren’t included in what they see.

If a task has gone somewhere you didn’t intend, turn it into a chat and ask the same question directly. The work so far is discarded and what was already spent stays spent — the screen shows you that exact amount before you confirm.