diff --git a/autogpt/db.py b/autogpt/db.py
index 7cf3dd83..bbd9cfc5 100644
--- a/autogpt/db.py
+++ b/autogpt/db.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ class TaskModel(Base):
 
     task_id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True, autoincrement=True)
     input = Column(String)
-    additional_input = Column(String)
+    additional_input = Dict
 
     artifacts = relationship("ArtifactModel", back_populates="task")
 
diff --git a/autogpt/schema.py b/autogpt/schema.py
index 15a8c274..b69438b6 100644
--- a/autogpt/schema.py
+++ b/autogpt/schema.py
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ class StepOutput(BaseModel):
 class TaskRequestBody(BaseModel):
     input: str = Field(
         ...,
+        min_length=1,
         description="Input prompt for the task.",
         example="Write the words you receive to the file 'output.txt'.",
     )