How to Choose AI Task Management Software

• A to-do list helps you stay on top of things, but on its own it doesn't increase your leverage, which for a manager means a greater result for the same effort.
• Writing a task down was never going to make you finish it faster.

• The exception was having employees: you write the task down, assign it, and it gets done.
• Plenty of owners ran their companies without a list at all, because they could walk into the office or call someone and say what needed doing.

AI is leverage like an employee, but you have to communicate with it in particular ways. There are two main ones.

• Chat, as in Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT: you say something and it responds. It's slow and expensive, and it only acts when you ask or when a scheduled task fires.
• Workflows are repeated actions that run every time something happens, like an email arriving, a call being booked or a call ending. They're cheap and fast, however often they run.
• This is where the to-do list matters: it's the link between your business and what gets done. If your AI can read everything you need to do, it can schedule those tasks and do them, and you stop being the bottleneck.
• A list on paper can't do that. You can also call or text your agent to move tasks to done; Carly lets you do both.

Imagine workflows as employees on steroids.

• If you're on ten calls a day, those calls create tasks: promises you made, things people asked for.
• Record your meetings, hand the notes to AI, and let it update your to-do list and your CRM.
• The workflow templates include ready-made versions of this. Copy the prompt, give it to ChatGPT or Claude, and you're done.

• These terms are used interchangeably here. The difference is that a project management tool is built for a team, while a task manager or to-do list is usually for one person.
• A CRM plays the same role: a record of what's happening that needs updates and things marked done. AI is at least as useful there, because nearly every manual update can be automated.
• Whichever you use, it becomes the record of what needs doing, and the basis for what your AI agents complete.

• On the Carly integrations page, filter by task management or project management to see the tools Carly connects to with one click.
• If yours isn't listed, use Connect an API on the same page.
• Carly also has its own to-do list, which you can share with other people.

• Look in the plugins or connectors directory in ChatGPT or Claude.
• If it's not there, search online for the tool plus ChatGPT or Claude. Look for an MCP server (Model Context Protocol), which is a way for AI to talk to another app.
• No MCP server? In Carly, go to Integrations → Connect an API, and Carly can make almost any software usable by AI.

Connecting to AI is one thing. Letting it do everything you'd want is another.

• On a to-do list, an agent will want to:
  • add, edit and delete tasks
  • add subtasks
  • assign people
  • add comments
  • set due dates and priorities
• Whether you work through Carly, ChatGPT or Claude, ask the agent to try each action you need and confirm it works.

• Webhooks send information to another service automatically when something happens.
• They're what makes rules like "When John finishes the task, send an email" possible.
• Missing webhooks isn't a reason to switch tools on its own. There are workarounds, and you can book a call with the Carly team to find one.

• Pen and paper hold you back. Agents can't work from them, so pick task management software: a to-do list, a project tool or a CRM.
• Once your agents can read it, they can work on your behalf while you sleep and while you're awake.
• Evaluate any tool with the three checks, and ask AI to help you review it.
• Plenty of people run on just email and a calendar. Agents can read those too, and many companies pair them with a CRM and are happy with the results.