Skip to main content
With GPT-5, GPT-5.1 or GPT-5-mini, your AI Agent can automatically recognize the current date and time, no setup needed.

​
Time awareness

Your Agent can:
  • Tell the current date and time
  • Calculate dates (“What day is it in three days?”)
  • Count days between dates
  • Understand relative language like today, next week, or in two months
This helps your Agent give more natural and accurate responses.
Time awareness is only available when using GPT-5, GPT-5.1 or GPT-5-mini. Older models like GPT-4 do not recognize the current date and time.
If you’ve added guardrails to your Agent to only speak about your company, it might to respond to questions about the time. If so, make sure to update the guardrails.

​
Choosing the right model

We recommend GPT-5-mini for most use cases: fast, accurate, and great for everyday conversations. Need more advanced reasoning? You can switch to GPT-5 or GPT-5.1.
Learn all about the different models here.

​
How your Agent uses time

Time awareness is always active, but you can guide how your Agent uses it through the Agent’s personality. For example:
“Answer as if it is always the year 2030.”
Your Agent will follow this instruction, while still having time awareness in the background.