But in our testing, AI task-scheduling software generally failed to make a difference in what I was able to accomplish. Yes, these apps scheduled time for me to do a task. But that didn't necessarily mean I'd get to the task at that time or find myself working on the most important task at that moment.
In one sense, AI fails at scheduling tasks due to a lack of data. It can intuit, for example, that an "Email accountant" task is finance-related, or estimate that "an email" should take around five minutes to write, but it can't divine a task's full requirements or its relative priority unless you outline every detail.
And if you have to go to that much trouble, you might as well schedule the task yourself. After all, it's just one additional click. But that isn't the only reason AI comes up short.
Manual scheduling may be key to actually getting things done. Every time-management expert we spoke with told us that the act of choosing what to work on and when to work on it helps people get their most important work done.
"Scheduling specific tasks helps with focus and accountability, reducing the risk of procrastination," said time-management expert Nancy Colter. Author and expert Marc Zao-Sanders agreed, noting, "Choosing what to do and when to do it manually fosters and affirms agency." He added that such agency is what everyone needs "to feel worthwhile and responsible for what's going on in our lives."
AI promises to plan your day and save you time -- and someday in the future, it may actually do so. Thinking through your tasks, though, might be the best use of your time. It's how you can wrest agency from a schedule that may often seem out of your control.
Today's AI task-scheduling tools are best used as a space for you to think more carefully about how you use your time. With a universal inbox for your tasks, paired with tools to review tasks before you start the day and notify you when it's time to move on to the next one, you'll become more keenly aware of how time flies. And when you turn everything into a scheduled task, you'll realize how much "quick" email replies and Slack requests fill up your day with busywork instead of progress.
"At any given moment of any given day, there's one thing you've said you should be focused on, not two or three or seven or a hundred," said Zao-Sanders. How should you decide which task to do at that time? "My advice is to do it yourself."
AI doesn't understand context. In our testing, when I carefully defined tasks, listed their priority, and categorized them into goals, AI was good at scheduling them. But it was less accurate at guessing how long they would take, let alone the effort required to accomplish them.
Structured, for example, estimates an "energy level" for how much effort a task requires. But in my experience, it listed "going for a run" (something that I find gives me mental energy) as high energy, while listing a two-hour writing sprint (a task much more likely to leave me feeling drained) as low energy. Such results, of course, vary wildly from person to person.
AI tools are "helpful for automating routine scheduling, and identifying open time blocks," said Colter, but they lack "the human judgement needed to prioritize based on urgency, energy levels, and strategic goals." That prevents them from effectively choosing what's most important for you to do next.
Popular to-do and project-management apps are rapidly adding AI features. Most task- and project-management mainstays do not use AI to schedule tasks today. But it would be naive to assume that they won't in the future.
The kanban app Trello recently announced a universal task inbox to aggregate work from Gmail, Slack, and more. That Trello feature and our to-do list app pick, Todoist, both offer AI-powered tools for you to brainstorm ideas and break tasks into more actionable sub-tasks. And smart features such as natural-language parsing and recurring tasks have been standard in to-do list apps for years. It would be a small stretch to imagine their offering AI task scheduling in the future, as well.
We do not recommend switching productivity systems solely for automated task scheduling -- not today, anyhow. ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI large language model (LLM) tools are improving so quickly, today's recommendations could become obsolete tomorrow. But the features that may be worth the switch -- a universal task inbox and meeting-scheduling tools -- require only AI's close cousin, automation.
The AI premium is not worth paying yet. Todoist costs $5 a month. TickTick -- Wirecutter's budget-pick to-do list app -- costs $36 a year. Both also offer free, basic plans.
Every AI task-scheduling app we tested was priced higher than that, ranging from $5 per month for Structured's Pro plan with AI features to as much as $29 per month for Motion or $34 per month for Akiflow. (The only exceptions were Reclaim AI's free Lite plan and Antispace, which is free in beta.)
That premium may be worth paying for anyone who's juggling an especially busy schedule, if the integration-powered universal task inbox keeps you from forgetting critical tasks. But the price is difficult to justify for the AI features alone.
"Copilot is a mixed bag," Wirecutter senior staff writer Max Eddy wrote about the AI button built into many newer PC laptops. "So far I've found it slow, unpredictable, and questionably useful." He found the same with the iPhone's AI features, saying, "They're (mostly) unremarkable."
After testing today's AI task-scheduling apps in depth, we came to the same verdict.
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