Imagine waking up to find the most relevant industry news already waiting in your inbox—no more scrolling through dozens of websites or missing crucial updates.
What if I told you that an AI agent could research the entire internet, filter out duplicates, and craft personalized newsletters just for you? Sounds too good to be true?
Well, I just built exactly that, and I’m about to show you how to create your own in under 30 minutes.
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Why This AI Newsletter Agent Will Transform Your Morning Routine
Let’s be honest—staying updated in today’s fast-paced world feels impossible. You either miss important news or waste hours sifting through irrelevant content.
Most newsletter services are generic, filled with information you don’t care about, or arrive too late to be actionable.
But what if your newsletter could:
- Research breaking news from across the internet in real-time
- Focus only on topics you actually care about
- Never repeat stories you’ve already seen
- Arrive formatted perfectly for quick reading
- Cost you practically nothing to run
That’s exactly what we’re building today.
The Complete Blueprint: Your 3-Step Journey to AI-Powered News
Here’s what we’ll accomplish together:
Step 1: Set up your intelligent AI agent that thinks like a research assistant
Step 2: Connect it to Gmail for automated delivery
Step 3: Build a smart logging system that prevents duplicate content
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have your own personalized news agent working 24/7.
Step 1: Building Your AI Research Assistant
Getting Started with N8N
First, head over to N8N’s homepage and sign up for their free trial.
N8N is like having a digital assembly line where each station performs a specific task—think of it as Zapier’s more powerful cousin that specializes in AI automation.
Once you’re in your dashboard, click “Create Workflow”
Setting Up Your Trigger
Every great automation starts with a trigger—the spark that sets everything in motion.
Click the plus icon and search for “Schedule Trigger.”
This is your agent’s alarm clock. Set it to trigger at midnight (or whenever you prefer your news digest). The default midnight setting works perfectly for most people since you’ll wake up to fresh news.
Creating Your AI Agent’s Brain
Now comes the exciting part—giving your agent intelligence. Click the plus icon again and add an “AI Agent” node. Rename it to something clear like “News Research Agent.”
Here’s where the magic happens. You’ll see two critical sections:
User Prompt: This is your simple command to the agent
Enter: “Send me the newsletter for today.”
Toggle “Require Specific Output Format” to ON
This adds an “Output Parser” section.
System Prompt: This is your agent’s DNA—it defines who it is and what it does.
Click “Add Option” → “System Message” and replace the default text with this comprehensive prompt:
You are an expert newsletter curator specializing in AI tool launches and industry developments. Your mission is to research the internet and create a daily newsletter summarizing the 3 most impactful AI tool launches or developments from the past week.
ROLE: AI Industry Newsletter Curator
OUTPUT COUNT: Exactly 3 news items
CHARACTER LIMIT: 150 words per news item maximum
GUIDELINES:
- Focus on NEW tool launches, significant updates, or industry-changing developments
- Prioritize tools that solve real business problems
- Include why each development matters to professionals
- Verify information from multiple sources when possible
- Maintain an engaging, professional tone
STRUCTURE: Provide your response in the following JSON format:
{
"subject_line": "AI Weekly: [Key Theme] - [Date]",
"news_items": [
{
"title": "Tool/Development Name",
"content": "Brief description and key features",
"why_it_matters": "Impact explanation for professionals",
"source": "Primary source URL",
"category": "Tool Launch/Update/Industry News"
}
]
}
TOOLS AVAILABLE: You have access to internet search, thinking capabilities, and a Google Sheets log to avoid duplicate content.
EXAMPLES OF GOOD OUTPUT:
- "Claude 3.5 launches with breakthrough coding abilities"
- "OpenAI releases new GPT model with 50% cost reduction"
- "Microsoft integrates AI assistant into Excel workflows"
AVOID:
- Outdated news (older than 1 week)
- Overly technical jargon without explanation
- Duplicate content from previous newsletters
- Speculation or unverified rumors
Connecting Your AI Brain
You’ll notice an asterisk next to “Chat Model”—this is required.
Click it and select “OpenRouter Chat Model.”
If this is your first time, you’ll need to connect your OpenRouter credentials:
- Click “Create New Credential”
- Visit OpenRouter API
- Create a new secret key
- Copy and paste it into N8N
Giving Your Agent Internet Access
Your agent just created some news, but it was made up because it can’t access the internet yet. Let’s fix that.
Click the “Tools” tab and add Google Gemini.
Think of Gemini as Google Search with superpowers—your AI agent can now read, reason, and respond with the freshest context straight from the web.
Configuration is beautifully simple:
- Model: Select gemini-1.5-flash (fastest and most cost-efficient for live queries)
- Messages: Enable automatic messaging so your AI agent can “chat” with Gemini in real time
- Search Recency: Adjust to “Past Week” if you want trending and time-sensitive updates
- Simplify Output: Let the agent decide (Gemini does a great job balancing detail vs. brevity)
Structuring Your Output
Right now, your agent’s output is messy text. Let’s make it structured data we can work with.
Select “Structured Output Parser” and “Generate from JSON Example.”
Select “Google Gemini Chat Model”
Model : gemini-1.5-flash
Delete the placeholder and paste this structure:
{
"subject_line": "AI Weekly Update - March 15, 2024",
"news_items": [
{
"title": "Revolutionary AI Tool Launch",
"content": "Description of the tool and its capabilities...",
"why_it_matters": "Impact on industry professionals...",
"source": "https://example.com",
"category": "Tool Launch"
}
]
}
This forces your agent to provide clean, organized data that’s easy to format later.
Adding the Think Tool
Click “Tools” again and add the “Think” tool.
This is like giving your agent a moment to double-check its work before delivering results.
Description :
Use the tool to think about something. It will not obtain new information or change the database, but just append the thought to the log. Use it when complex reasoning or some cache memory is needed.
The Think tool makes your agent review its output and ensure it followed all instructions correctly. It’s like having a built-in quality control system.
No configuration needed—N8N’s default settings are perfect.
Step 2: Delivering Your Newsletter via Gmail
Now that your agent creates perfect newsletters, let’s get them delivered to your inbox automatically.
Connecting Gmail
Click the plus icon after your AI Agent and search for “Gmail.”
Select “Send a Message” action.
Click “Create New Credential” and sign in with your Google account—N8N makes this seamless with single sign-on.
Setting Up Your Email
To: Enter your email address (or your client’s)
Subject: Here’s where the structured output pays off. Click the field and drag in the “subject_line” from your AI agent’s output. You’ll see it appear as dynamic text.
Email Type: Keep as “HTML” for rich formatting
Message: This is where we transform your data into a beautiful newsletter. Change the input type to “Expression” and paste this HTML template:
Step 3: Smart Logging System (Never See Duplicates Again)
The final piece ensures your agent never sends you the same story twice.
Unbundling News Items
Your AI agent currently outputs 3 news items as one bundle. To log them individually in Google Sheets, we need to split them apart.
Add a “Code” node after Gmail and rename it “Unbundle Items.”
Paste this JavaScript code:
const items = [];
const data = $('N8nStack Agent').first().json.output;
const subjectLine = data.subject_line || '';
const newsList = data.news || [];
for (const news of newsList) {
items.push({
json: {
subject_line: subjectLine,
title: news.title || '',
content: news.content || '',
source: news.source || '',
date_published: news.date_published || ''
}
});
}
return items;
Important: Make sure your AI Agent is named exactly “News Research Agent” or update the code accordingly.
Logging to Google Sheets
Add a final “Google Sheets” node with “Append Row in Sheet” action. Rename it “Log to Sheets.”
Map the fields:
- Topic: Drag in “title” from the unbundled items
- Description: Drag in “content”
- Date Sent: Type {{$now}} for today’s date
- ID: Type = ROW()-1 (Excel formula for auto-numbering)
This creates a permanent record of every story sent, which your agent checks before sending new newsletters.
Your New Superpower: Never Miss Important News Again
Congratulations—you’ve just built a professional-grade intelligence system for under $10/month.
What once required teams and huge budgets is now automated: research across the internet, personalized filtering, polished newsletter formatting, duplicate prevention, and full customization.
Powered by N8N (free), OpenAI ($2–5), and Gemini/Perplexity ($2–5), your AI agent works 24/7 so you stay ahead while competitors scramble. And this is just the start—expand it to monitor competitors, track trends, or deliver client-ready reports. In just 30 minutes, you’ve built your personal intelligence network. Welcome to the age of AI-powered insight—your future self will thank you.
I’ll show you how I applied the same n8n automation framework to outbound sales—specifically, automating personalized cold email icebreakers. The result? A reply rate boost to 10%, all without manual research.
[…] That curiosity pushed me to build something new ; an AI Newsletter Agent that reads the web for me. […]