OpenAI has launched a new feature within the ChatGPT desktop application called “Computer History,” which is designed to help users remember what they were doing on their device and easily return to tasks or documents they have previously worked on.

ChatGPT remembers what you were doing
 

The feature relies on tracking some of the user’s activities on a Mac, such as clicks, keystrokes, and app navigation. It then converts this information into text summaries and a timeline that can be referenced later.

Thanks to this, users can ask ChatGPT about work they were doing at an earlier time or where they used a specific document, with the application attempting to help them access relevant information instead of searching for it manually.

The benefit does not stop at retrieving past activity. “Computer History” can also identify tasks that users repeatedly perform and suggest turning them into skills or automated processes that can be executed more easily. It has the option to use the Codex tool to implement automation after user review.

The feature doesn’t work without user consent
 

OpenAI has made sure that the feature is optional, as it is disabled by default and does not start collecting activity until users activate it themselves in the settings.

Users can also specify which applications and websites the feature is allowed to record activity for. There’s an option to temporarily stop data collection, as well as the ability to delete the history of activity at any time.

The feature also requires enabling the “memories” property in ChatGPT so that the app can leverage previous information when answering user questions in different conversations.

With this step, OpenAI is trying to transform ChatGPT from just a tool for answering questions into an assistant more capable of understanding the context of the user’s daily work and remembering what they accomplished before, while keeping the decision to enable the feature and control data in the hands of the user.