How I Built a Self-Running AI News Digest with n8n: No Code, Every Mistake Included
Learn how to build a self-running AI news digest with n8n in one afternoon, no code needed. Step-by-step tutorial with every mistake included.
TL;DR;
You can build a personal AI newsletter with n8n that wakes up every Friday, pulls the latest AI news from 6 sources, lets an AI pick the 5 most interesting stories, and emails you a clean digest. Zero code. Zero manual effort.
It runs itself every week. I built it in one afternoon using an automation tool called n8n, and I'm going to walk you through every single step; including every mistake I made so you don't have to repeat them.
At the end of the article, I’ll show you 6 more things and share 9000+ workflow automation examples with you, so you can build anything you want with n8n.
Merhaba👋🏻
I am a Software Engineer with 10+ years of experience. My goal is to close the gap between the technical and the non-technical, making AI accessible to everyone, regardless of their background.
It’s Sunday night. You’re thinking, “I should really keep up with what’s happening in AI.” So you open TechCrunch. Then Wired. Then The Guardian. Then you’re 14 tabs deep, half the articles are hype, the other half assume you have a PhD, and you still don’t know what actually matters this week.
I got tired of that loop. So I built something to fix it.
A simple automated workflow that collects AI news from trusted sources, asks an AI to pick the best stories and explain them in plain English, and sends the result to my inbox every Friday morning. No fluff, no jargon, no endless scrolling through tech sites.
Here’s exactly how I did it.
What You'll Build: A Self-Running AI Weekly Digest
Before we get into the steps, here’s the full picture. You’re building a workflow that:
Wakes up every Friday morning on its own
Pulls the latest AI news from 3 sources across the US and Europe (you can add as much source as you want)
Lets an AI pick the 5 most interesting stories and summarize them in plain English
Sends a clean email to your inbox with real links, real sources, zero manual effort
Once it’s set up, you never touch it again. It just runs.
Why n8n Is the Best No-Code Tool for This Workflow
This process called “workflow automation”, but it is actually a visual recipe builder for your apps.
Think of n8n like LEGO. You connect blocks together, each block does one small thing (fetch articles, merge them, ask an AI a question, send an email) and together they create something powerful.
You tell it: when THIS happens, do THAT.
Each block is called a node. A node can be almost anything: a website you already use (Gmail, Notion, Slack, Google Sheets), an AI model, a scheduler, or a simple rule like “only continue if the subject line contains the word urgent”. You drag them onto a canvas, draw a line between them, and you have just built a small automated brain.
Here is what makes n8n different from just writing yourself a reminder or a checklist: it runs without you. Once your workflow is active, n8n sits quietly in the background, waiting for a trigger and when that trigger fires, every step executes on its own. You do not have to be there. You do not have to remember. It just happens.
A few things n8n can do that might surprise you:
Monitor the web for you. Set it to check a blog or news source every morning and only notify you when something matches your interests.
Be your AI assistant’s hands. Ask an AI to summarize a document, then automatically drop that summary into a Notion page or send it to a colleague.
Connect apps that were never meant to talk to each other. Your online store, your spreadsheet, your email, your calendar. n8n can make them share information in real time.
Replace repetitive copy-paste work. If you ever find yourself moving the same information from one place to another, over and over, n8n can take that task off your plate permanently.
You do not need to write code. You do not need to understand how APIs work. You just need to be able to describe what you want in plain language, and then find the right nodes to make it happen.
👩🏻💻 If you want to get your hands dirty and go deep into coding, check out my 5-part No-BS Vibe Coding Series and create your own AI Agent with Python.
If you want to try this workflow automation today:
Go to n8n.io
Sign up for the free trial Cloud plan (You can upgrade later if you want)
No install, no terminal, no credit card
That’s it. You’re ready to build.
Step 1: Connect Your AI News Sources via RSS Feeds
Everything starts with information. We need to tell n8n where to find AI news.
RSS is a quiet feature most websites already have. It’s a live feed of their latest articles that you can subscribe to. Most people don’t know it exists because it was designed for machines to read, not for humans.
💡 Quick note: When you paste an RSS link in your browser, you’ll probably get a weird popup or a broken-looking page full of code. That’s normal. RSS is machine-readable, not human-readable. n8n will be able to handle that.
Here are the 3 sources I started with. Add one RSS Read node per source:
TechCrunch AI:
https://techcrunch.com/category/artificial-intelligence/feed/Wired AI:
https://www.wired.com/feed/tag/ai/latest/rssThe Guardian AI:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/artificialintelligenceai/rss
Connect all 3 RSS nodes to your “Execute Workflow” trigger. We’ll handle the real scheduling later in Step 7.
Three sources gives you a solid spread across US and European coverage. You can add more later; the pattern is the same every time.
Step 2: Filter the Feed - Keep Only the Best 5 Per Source
RSS feeds can return 50+ articles at once. That’s way too much noise.
Add a Limit node after each RSS node and set it to 5 items. This gives you up to 15 articles total; a manageable number for the AI to work with.
You can change this number however you like. I found 5 per source to be the sweet spot; enough variety without overwhelming the AI or your inbox.
Step 3: Merge All Sources Into One List
Right now you have 3 separate streams of 5 articles each. We need to combine them into one single list.
Add one Merge node. Connect all 3 Limit nodes into it. Set the Mode to Append.
All 15 articles now flow into one list.
💡 The Merge node has numbered inputs (Input 1, Input 2...). You need to manually drag each Limit node’s output into a separate input. If you connect them all to the same input, you’ll lose data.
Step 4: Aggregate - The Step Most Tutorials Skip (And Shouldn't)
This is the step most tutorials skip, and it causes the biggest headache. I learned this the hard way.
Add an Aggregate node after the Merge node. Set it to “All Item Data (Into a Single List)”.
Here’s what’s actually happening: without this node, the AI processes each article individually, one at a time.
💡 If you skip this node (like I did in the beginning), you may end up getting multiple emails instead of one 🫠
The Aggregate node bundles all 15 articles into one batch so the AI sees everything at once. One batch in, one decision out.
Step 5: Let the AI Pick and Summarize the 5 Best Stories
Now the interesting part.
We’re going to ask an AI to read all 15 articles and pick the 5 most interesting ones, then write a clean summary for each.
Add a Basic LLM Chain node. Inside it, add a chat model. I picked Google Gemini, but you can use Anthropic or whatever model you prefer.
Double-click on the Basic LLM Chain node. In the Parameters section, set “Source for Prompt (User Section)” to “Define Below”.
We’re going to set two things: a User Prompt and a System Prompt.
User Prompt:
{{ JSON.stringify($json) }}
Please write this week's digest for Becoming with AI readers.
Format each stories like this:
📌 [Plain English headline]
[2-3 sentences: what happened + why it matters]
🔗 Source: "URL"System Prompt:
You are the editorial assistant for "Becoming with AI" —
a weekly newsletter that makes AI accessible to non-technical people.
Readers are curious working professionals in Europe and the US.
Rules:
- Always pick exactly 5 stories
- Format each source link as HTML: <a href="URL">Publication</a>
- ONLY summarize articles explicitly provided. NEVER invent stories.💡 I have built this system for Becoming with AI newsletter audience for demo purpose, you can tweak the prompts for your use case.
Step 6: Set Up Gmail to Send Your Digest Automatically
This part took me the longest. Not because it’s hard, but because email authentication has a few quirks depending on your setup.
If you’re on n8n Cloud, try the Gmail node first. It might just work with a direct OAuth connection. I am using self-hosted n8n and some features don’t work for me.
If it doesn’t work (like it didn’t for me), here’s the fix: Use Gmail with an App Password instead.
If you want to try this today:
Go to myaccount.google.com and find Security and sign-in
Make sure 2-Step Verification is enabled
Write an app name (I wrote “Mail”)
Click “Create” and you’ll get a 16-character password. Copy it.
Go back to n8n and double-click on the Send Email node
Fill in the credentials:
User: your-email@gmail.com
Password: the 16-character password from step 5
Host: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 587
SSL/TLS: off
Click Save
💡 Port matters: I first tried Port 465 with SSL/TLS on. It threw a timed-out error. Port 587 with SSL/TLS off worked immediately.
Now configure the email itself:
Credentials: SMTP account
Operation: Send
From Email: your-email@gmail.com
To Email: your-email@gmail.com
Subject: Your Weekly AI Digest
Email Format: Text
Text:
{{ $json.text }}
💡 Yes, From and To are the same email. You’re sending this digest to yourself. That’s the whole point.
💡 Optional: You can choose Email Format as HTML if you want a better-looking email. Otherwise, you’ll get plain text and links, which is also fine.
Step 7: Add a Schedule Trigger - Make It Run Every Friday
This is the last piece. We need to replace the manual trigger with a schedule so this thing runs on its own every Friday.
Search for Schedule Trigger and add this node to the very beginning of your workflow (replacing the Execute Workflow trigger). Configure it to run every week on Friday at 8:00 AM.
Click Execute Flow to test it once manually and make sure everything works end to end.
💡 This is the step that tripped me up: The schedule won’t run automatically unless you publish the workflow. Click the Publish button in the top right corner.
The Full n8n Workflow: What It Looks Like End to End
Here’s what you built, end to end:
Schedule Trigger fires every Friday at 8 AM
3 RSS Read nodes pull the latest AI articles from TechCrunch, Wired, and The Guardian
3 Limit nodes trim each source to 5 articles
1 Merge node combines all 15 articles into one stream
1 Aggregate node bundles them into a single batch
1 Basic LLM Chain node asks AI to pick the 5 best and summarize them
1 Send Email node delivers the digest to your inbox
Seven steps. No code. Runs itself every week.
Here is the actual result:
💡 You can make it look better by using HTML instead of plain text. I wanted to keep it simple for demo purposes.
Share this post with someone who is learning automation tools and n8n
What Else Can You Build with n8n?
Building this took me one afternoon, but the real value wasn’t the automation. It was the feeling of not drowning in AI news anymore.
And the digest was just the beginning.
Once you understand the pattern; trigger → fetch → process → send, you start seeing automation opportunities everywhere. Here are a few real ideas, no technical background required:
A job alert that actually gets it. Most job boards are noisy. With n8n, you can connect to a job board’s RSS feed, run the results through an AI that filters by your actual criteria (not just keywords), and get only the roles that genuinely match, delivered to your inbox every morning.
A meeting prep assistant. Every Sunday night, n8n checks your Google Calendar for the week ahead, pulls in LinkedIn profiles or notes from your CRM for each person you’re meeting, and sends you a clean briefing doc. You show up prepared every time, automatically.
A content repurposing machine. You publish a newsletter. n8n picks it up, asks an AI to rewrite it as a LinkedIn post, a short tweet thread, and a plain-text email, then drops all three into a Google Doc for your review. One piece of writing, four formats, zero manual work.
A personal spending tracker. When an email receipt lands in your inbox, n8n reads it, pulls out the amount and category, and logs it to a Google Sheet. At the end of the month, it emails you a simple summary. No app subscription. No manual entry.
A “what should I read this week?” curator. You give n8n 5 Substack newsletters you love. Every Tuesday, it scrapes the latest issues, asks an AI to pick the 3 most relevant articles based on your current interests, and sends you a shortlist. Your reading list, curated by AI, delivered before your first coffee.
A client check-in system. When a new client signs a contract (via your form tool), n8n automatically sends a welcome email, creates a folder in Google Drive, adds them to your CRM, and sets a reminder to follow up in 7 days. All in under a second.
The pattern is always the same: pick a trigger, add a few nodes, tell the AI what you want, and send the result somewhere useful. You’re not writing code. You’re describing a process, and n8n does the rest. This is called “workflow automation”, and you can build anything from AI news digest to a personal assistant that works for free and never calls in sick.
💡 If you want to go deeper, the n8n community workflows library has over 9,000 real templates to browse. Search for anything; chances are, someone has already built a version of your idea.
Which part clicked for you? Or which part still feels fuzzy? Drop it below; your question might be the next article!
PS: If you're new here and wondering why a software engineer is writing about all this - here's why I started Becoming with AI.