9.8 The same recurring work on both AI vendors

In everyday life. Two banks both let you set up a recurring transfer. One sends it from a joint account that you share, the other from your own account alone. The transfer is the same. Who it comes from is not.

What you will learn. How each AI vendor's own pages say you can run the same recurring work, and the three differences that change your setup. You practice it in step 6 of the lab.

Why it matters. The design stays the same on both AI vendors. Who the work runs as, what can start it and how its initiative is limited do not, so the same design can behave differently.

The design in 9.1 to 9.7 is the same on either AI vendor: Anthropic, which makes Claude, or OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT. The products that support it are different. The two boxes below use the same seven lines, in the same order.

Anthropic, as verified 8 October 2026.

• Schedules. Scheduled tasks in Claude run at set times, on paid plans.¹ They run remotely, unless a task needs files or apps on your own computer. Chat and Cowork are one Claude, which is being released in stages, starting with the Pro and Max plans.² Claude Code, the coding harness, has routines, in research preview, that add custom schedules.³
• Event triggers. Claude Code routines start from an API call or from GitHub events.³ Anthropic's pages do not describe a task in the Claude app that starts when an email arrives.
• Each run. Each scheduled task runs as its own session.¹ If a routine's trigger is sent again, it starts another session.⁴ A routine's green status means the system running it had no error. It does not mean the task succeeded.³
• Whose name. A Claude Code routine belongs to your own account and acts as you.³ In a channel, Claude Tag, a shared Claude in a Slack channel, works under its own identity, with the access an admin sets for that channel. In a direct message, or with a member's own connectors, it acts as that member.⁵
• Approvals. A scheduled task has an approval mode, from manual approval to "Skip all approvals." Even with "Skip all approvals," permanent file deletion always needs your permission.⁶ Claude Code routines run without asking for approval, except when they publish some artifacts. So you control them by what they can reach.³
• Standing worker. Claude Tag, in beta on Team and Enterprise, is one shared Claude in a Slack channel.⁷ It follows up on its own, and it can reply without being tagged, but only while "Respond automatically" is on.⁸
• Review and stop. Past runs are on the Scheduled page, where a task can be paused.¹ Claude Tag's Activity page lists every task for Owners, and its spending can be limited.⁷

OpenAI, as verified 8 October 2026.

• Schedules. Scheduled tasks run once or on a schedule.⁹ How often depends on the kind of task: a task scheduled inside a chat can repeat at intervals measured in minutes.¹⁰ Your plan limits how many tasks can be active.⁹ Team tasks, on Business and Enterprise, are recurring work owned by a team.¹¹
• Event triggers. Tasks in Work can start from Gmail, Slack or GitHub activity. On Enterprise and Edu, an admin must allow this first.⁹
• Each run. A scheduled task that is not inside a chat starts a new chat each time it runs. A task scheduled inside a chat returns to that chat.¹⁰ A team task keeps a list of previous runs.¹¹
• Whose name. Team tasks run under the team's service account, an account that belongs to the team, not to the creator.¹¹
• Approvals. Approval rules in connected apps still apply, and an action that needs approval may pause a task.⁹
• Standing worker. A dot is an always-on agent with its own cloud computer and memory.¹² It is being released to Pro and Business Premium, and it is a beta on Enterprise.¹³ Its own background research uses read-only tools, which can look but not change anything.¹² For some actions, its Custom Rules let you choose "take action without asking," "take action when you say so," "ask before taking action" or "hand off to you."¹⁴
• Review and stop. Activity View shows a dot's work.¹² Pause stops its current main task, but not every delegated task, and not its scheduled runs. Delete does not undo changes already made in connected apps.¹⁴

The comparison. Three differences change your setup.

Identity: a ChatGPT team task runs under a team service account. Claude Tag, in a channel, runs under its own identity. But a Claude Code routine acts as you. Put team work under a team or worker identity.

Events: ChatGPT's documentation describes tasks started by a new Gmail message. Anthropic documents two kinds of trigger, neither from email: Claude Code routines, from an API call or GitHub, and Claude Tag, from Slack.

Initiative: a dot's own research is read-only, and some of its actions have Custom Rules. But Pause does not stop its scheduled work. Claude Tag is controlled by admins' channel, tool and data settings, and by "Respond automatically." Claude Tag's pages do not describe a rule for each kind of action. On either AI vendor, write your own initiative rules. Then make them hold by limiting what the worker can access.

What stays the same. Whichever AI vendor runs the work, design as if a run starts fresh. It sees only what it is given, and its trigger can fire twice. Continuity is kept in records the run reads, never in a chat. Initiative is graded on the ladder of 9.6, and it never widens authority. And every piece of work that runs without you has a named person who reads what it did.