Chat Tasks: Ask for a File, Keep Working
Ask Scholarly chat for a calendar file, spreadsheet, or ZIP. A task builds it in the background while you keep chatting, then posts the file in the same chat.
You are halfway through a conversation about next quarter's plan and realise you need six companies' earnings dates on your calendar. That request takes real work: several web searches, some code to build the file, and saving it. It should not hold up the conversation you were having.
Starting today, Scholarly chat hands that kind of request to a task. The task runs in the background, chat replies right away, and you keep chatting. When the task ends, chat posts the result in the same chat by itself, with the file attached.
How It Works
There is nothing to switch on. You ask in chat, in plain words, and chat decides how to handle it:
- A quick request, one or two steps, is answered directly, the way chat always has.
- A request that takes real work goes to a task. Chat tells you it has started, and the conversation stays open for whatever you want to ask next.
A task works with three things: web search, a private sandbox where it builds files, and your own Scholarly library. When it ends, the result arrives as a new message in the chat you asked in. You do not have to ask for it again.
What to Ask For
Tasks suit deliverables that take several steps to look up and build:
- A calendar file (.ics) of upcoming events looked up on the web
- A spreadsheet or CSV of looked-up facts
- A ZIP of files
- A converted or merged document
- A chart pack
Here is how that looks in three kinds of work.
An analyst tracking earnings dates. In the middle of a chat about a coverage list: "Look up the next earnings dates for these six companies and give me a calendar file I can import." The task searches for each date, writes the events into an .ics file, and chat posts it while you carry on with the analysis.
An L&D lead building a training calendar. "Take the onboarding schedule in my library and turn every session into a calendar file." The task reads the schedule from your library, builds the file in its sandbox, and the calendar is in the chat when it ends.
An operations manager tidying a vendor list. "Look up these twelve vendors and build a spreadsheet with each one's website, headquarters city, and support page." The task looks up each vendor on the web and saves one table instead of twelve browser tabs.
Say which format you want ("a calendar file", "a CSV", "a ZIP") and which facts belong in it. The clearer the request, the less there is to fix afterwards.
What Tasks Are Not For
Tasks are not how the big creations are made. Slides, video lectures, podcasts, flashcards from your sources, study guides, and Deep Research keep their own creators and their own progress pages. That has not changed.
If you would rather start from a source and pick the file format yourself, the AI File Creator is still there too.
What You See While a Task Runs
A small card in the chat shows what the task is doing: searching the web, running code, saving the file. The card has Cancel if you change your mind.
You do not need to keep the tab open. The result is in the chat when you come back, and Scholarly marks it so it is easy to find:
- A chat with a result you have not opened shows an unread dot in the sidebar and in chat lists.
- The same chat gets a row on Home.
For a task that takes a while, the card offers Email me when it's done. The email is sent only if you have not opened the result by then, so you do not get mail about a file you have already seen.
Limits
- Two tasks at once. Up to two tasks can run at the same time in a chat.
- Five minutes each. A task can run for up to five minutes. In our testing, a typical research-and-build request, a calendar of one company's events over two years, finished in about a minute.
- A task can fail. If it cannot finish, because it reached the time limit or hit an error, chat says so and still attaches anything the task had already saved.
- Check what matters. A task looks facts up on the web and can get one wrong. Before a date goes to your team or a figure goes into a report, open the file and check it.
Credits and Your Chat Allowance
Tasks are part of chat, so a task takes no extra credit. The result message that chat posts when a task ends does not count against your chat message allowance. See Plans and Limits for what your plan includes.
Also New: The Same Chat in Two Tabs
One related improvement shipped with tasks. The same chat open in two tabs, or in two browsers, now stays in step. A message sent in one appears in the other within a few seconds, and the answer streams in both.
How to Try It
- Open Scholarly and start a chat, or continue one.
- Ask for the deliverable and name the format, for example "a calendar file of these events" or "a CSV of these vendors".
- Keep working. Watch the card if you like, or leave and come back.
- Open the result message and the attached file.
For everything else chat can do, see the AI Chat guide.
