Background AI tasks: progress, results and revisions

Some requests take more than a quick answer: planning next week's schedule, researching what local businesses charge, or building a list of businesses to pitch. The AI assistant can run these as background tasks while you keep working. A task never changes anything on its own: it comes back with a card for you to confirm. Background tasks are included with the Starter and Pro plans, within your plan's monthly task budget.

What kinds of background tasks are there?

The Tasks view labels each task by kind:

• Background task: general work, such as drafting next week's schedule, writing an email campaign or an outreach plan, drafting emails and texts, plans, reports and audits.
• Research task: web research, such as finding local market rates and proposing pricing rules with cited sources.
• Lead search: finding local businesses to pitch, with the emails they publish on their own websites. See Find leads with the AI assistant.

Schedule planning, pricing research and lead searches are for owners and admins. Other team members can run general tasks about their own jobs.

How do I start a background task?

Ask the assistant in chat, by typing or in Assistant mode. It starts a task when a request needs several steps, and usually replies with something like "On it — I'll have a draft in a few minutes." For example:

• "Plan next week's schedule."
• "Build me pricing rules for residential cleaning."
• "Find 50 property managers in Kelowna with emails."
• "Write a win-back email campaign for clients who haven't booked this year."

You can also open the assistant, click Tasks, and type in the box that says Start a background task…. A request with several parts, like "get 50 leads with emails and draft an email", becomes one task that covers every part.

How do I follow a task's progress?

While a task runs, a card in the chat shows its current step, how far through its plan it is (for example "N steps · plan 2/4"), and what it has spent against its budget, with Details and Cancel buttons.

Click Details, or open the task from the Tasks view or the Tasks page in the sidebar, to see the full detail. It updates live while the task runs:

• What you asked for: a checklist of each requirement, ticked off as it's met, with numbers such as "21/50 leads that have a published email".
• Plan: the task's steps and how many are done.
• Spent, Web searches, Pages read and AI steps.
• Waiting for your OK: the cards the task has prepared, which you can confirm or cancel right there.
• What it wrote: full drafts, such as an email draft or a table, with a Copy button.
• Activity: a live timeline of what it did, such as "Searched the web", "Checked driving times between jobs" or "Found 48 businesses, 31 with an email". Tick show all steps to see every step.

How will I know when a task is done?

When a task finishes, its result and any cards appear in the conversation you started it from, and the Assistant and Tasks buttons show a badge. If the assistant panel is closed, a notice pops up, such as "Draft ready for your OK", "Task done", "Task stopped at a limit" or "Task couldn't finish", with an Open button. Tasks don't send email or text notifications.

Does the task check its own work?

Yes. Before a task finishes, it compares the result with what you asked for. If something fixable is still missing, it keeps going instead of stopping early. It never pads a list to hit a number: rows that don't match what you asked for are removed.

If a task can't fully deliver, it tells you honestly, for example "I got 21 of the 50 you asked for", and the detail shows Why it fell short, what it Tried, and what to do Next.

How do I send a task back for changes?

Tell the assistant what's off, in your own words: "that's not what I asked", "I said 50", "only ones with an email", "do it again but…" or "you missed the draft".

• If the task is finished, it reopens as a new revision in the same timeline. It keeps everything it already found and gets a fresh step budget for the revision, inside your monthly limit. Its new card replaces the old one, which is marked Replaced.
• If the task is still running, it picks up your note at its next step ("Got it — I'll fold that in while it's still working").

The task shows a Revision 2 badge (and so on). You can send a task back up to four times; after that, start a fresh task with the full request.

How do schedule drafts work?

Ask "Plan next week's schedule" (or name the dates, up to 14 days and 60 jobs). The task looks at:

• each worker's weekly availability and date overrides, such as days off;
• existing bookings, which stay where they are;
• how long each job usually takes (the job's own duration, or the typical time for that service);
• travel time between back-to-back jobs, using driving-time lookups where available and distance-based estimates otherwise, with at least 15 minutes between jobs.

Conflicts are checked when the plan is made and again just before anything is saved. The result is one card, "Schedule N jobs", grouped by day, with a checkbox for each job. Untick any you don't want, then click Confirm. Click View to open the Scheduling page with the proposed jobs drawn in as dashed tiles marked Proposed; you can untick and confirm there too. Nobody is notified automatically about new times or assignments.

How does pricing research work?

Ask something like "Build me pricing rules for residential cleaning". The task searches the web for what businesses near you charge and proposes pricing rules for a new or existing service. The card, "Researched pricing: <service>", lists the proposed rules and a Sources section showing the page behind each price. Check the numbers against your own costs before you click Confirm.

Can I cancel a task?

Yes. Click Cancel on the task card or in its detail. Cancelling stops the task and changes nothing ("Cancelled — nothing was changed."). Tasks can't be paused.

What are the limits?

• Background tasks use your plan's monthly task budget: US$1 on Starter and US$5 on Pro, reset on the 1st of each month (UTC). The Tasks view shows "AI tasks this month", and Settings → Billing shows the Background tasks budget (US$) meter.
• Each task also has its own spending cap, step limit and time limit, and can propose at most 3 cards.
• Up to 2 tasks run at once for your business. If too many are waiting, you'll see "There are already several tasks waiting — try again when one finishes."
• When the monthly budget is used up, new tasks can't start until the 1st ("This month's AI task budget … is used up."). The rest of the assistant keeps working.

See AI usage limits by plan for every limit.