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Grok Now Does Your Busywork: Scheduled Tasks, Email Triggers, and Auto-Replies

Let's be honest: nobody enjoys doing the same repetitive tasks day after day. Checking emails, monitoring news, sending reminders—it's the kind of stuff that eats up your time without making you feel productive. xAI seems to have read our minds, because Grok just rolled out a feature called Automations that lets you hand off those chores to AI.

What Can Grok Automations Do?

Think of it as a personal assistant that works 24/7 without coffee breaks. You describe what you need in plain English—just like you'd chat with a friend—attach any relevant files, connect tools or skills, and pick a running mode. Give it a name, hit save, and you're done. Every time it runs, it follows the same instructions but fetches the latest data. So it's not just replaying old answers; it's actually doing fresh work each time.

Two Ways to Trigger Tasks

Grok offers two main triggers: scheduled and email-based.

Scheduled tasks are straightforward. You can set them to run once, daily, weekdays only, weekly, monthly, or even yearly—at a specific time in your time zone. Imagine a morning briefing that lands in your inbox before 8 a.m., or a rent reminder on the first of every month. No more setting up separate calendar alerts.

Email triggers are where things get really interesting. Grok watches your inbox, and when an email arrives that matches filters you set (by sender, recipient, or subject), it kicks off the task immediately. It uses that email as context, so Grok can reply directly to the real message. You can even mention a specific tool in your instructions by typing @ followed by a connector, and Grok will use it automatically every time.

Of course, you can also trigger tasks manually—handy for testing right after you set one up.

Real Conversations, Not Just Cold Output

Each time an automation runs, Grok starts a real conversation, completes the work, and saves the results in a run history. You can open any run, read through the full thread, or even continue the conversation from where Grok left off. And how does it report back? You choose: email, app notifications, both, or neither—you can check later at your convenience.

Getting Started Is Easy

You can create tasks directly in a chat. For example, tell Grok "every morning, help me check the news and mark any articles related to pricing," and it'll set up the process for you. The Automations page also has ready-made templates to get you started. Any task can be paused, resumed, edited, or deleted at any time, so you stay in control.

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Availability

You can create your first automation at grok.com/automations. Scheduled tasks are free for everyone, while the email-triggered function is part of the SuperGrok subscription. When AI starts checking the time, monitoring emails, and working on its own, maybe the only thing humans need to do is clearly express what they want.

Key Points

  • Grok Automations lets you create tasks using natural language.
  • Two trigger types: scheduled (once, daily, weekly, etc.) and email-based.
  • Tasks run fresh each time, using the latest data.
  • Results are saved as conversations you can review or continue.
  • Scheduled tasks are free; email triggers require SuperGrok.