A method provides for operating a drive train having several drive assemblies, a transmission and an output A first drive assembly acts on a first transmission shaft of the transmission, and a second drive assembly acts on a second transmission shaft. The transmission includes several shift elements, whereas an output torque depending on a driver's requested torque is provided at the output. For the opening of a shift element the shift element is placed without load. The probability of a gearshift request is determined on the control side by a shifting strategy. If the probability of a gearshift request is greater than the defined threshold, a torque provided by a first drive assembly and the second drive assembly is changed on the control side in advance of an actual gearshift request, while maintaining the driver's requested torque at the output, in such a manner that a torque, which is transferred by a shift element to be opened for the gearshift that is detected to be probable, is reduced as much as possible in order to minimize the time required after the actual gearshift request for the execution of the gearshift.