AI Automation Content Curation Email Marketing n8n OpenAI

Daily AI News Digest from Hacker News with GPT Summaries

Automate your daily AI news briefing: fetch AI-tagged stories from Hacker News, filter, scrape, summarize with GPT, and deliver a clean HTML email digest—no manual curation needed.

Download Template JSON · n8n compatible · Free
Visualization of the Daily AI News Digest automation workflow showing Hacker News integration, AI summarization, and email delivery steps

What This Workflow Does

Staying ahead in the fast-moving field of artificial intelligence requires constant learning, but manually scouring news sites is incredibly time-consuming. This automation solves that problem by creating a personalized, AI-powered news briefing delivered to your inbox every morning.

The workflow connects to the Hacker News API, fetches the top stories tagged with "AI," filters for the most recent 24 hours, visits each source link to scrape the full content, uses OpenAI's GPT to generate concise summaries, and compiles everything into a professionally formatted HTML email. It transforms hours of reading into a 2-minute skim, keeping you informed without the overwhelm.

Beyond personal use, this system is perfect for teams, agencies, or content creators who need to monitor AI trends for competitive analysis, content ideas, or client reporting. It ensures you never miss a major development while reclaiming valuable time for strategic work.

How It Works

The process is a seamless pipeline that runs on a schedule you set (daily is recommended).

Step 1: Fetch & Filter Stories

The workflow starts by querying the Hacker News API for up to 1000 stories. It applies a filter to isolate only those containing "AI" in their title or keywords, then uses a date expression node to select items from the last 24 hours, ensuring your digest is always fresh.

Step 2: Scrape & Extract Content

For each qualifying story, an HTTP Request node visits the original source URL. The HTML is converted to clean markdown, stripping away ads, navigation, and other noise to isolate the article's core content for optimal AI processing.

Step 3: Generate AI Summaries

The cleaned text is sent to OpenAI's GPT model with a custom prompt instructing it to create a headline and a two-sentence summary highlighting the key insight or development. This happens in a loop, processing each story sequentially.

Step 4: Format & Deliver

All summaries are aggregated into a single HTML document with a clean, mobile-responsive design. The workflow then connects to your configured SMTP server (Gmail, SendGrid, etc.) and sends the polished digest to your specified email address.

Who This Is For

This template is designed for professionals who need to stay informed but are short on time. AI researchers, developers, tech founders, marketers tracking trends, venture capitalists scouting innovations, and content teams looking for inspiration will find immediate value. It's also ideal for agencies that provide competitive intelligence reports to clients or internal teams that need a shared knowledge base.

What You'll Need

  1. An n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted) to run the workflow.
  2. OpenAI API key for the GPT summarization step.
  3. SMTP email credentials (from Gmail, Outlook, Zoho, SendGrid, etc.) to send the final digest.
  4. A destination email address where you want the digest delivered.

Pro tip: For more reliable scraping, consider using a rotating proxy service if you plan to process a high volume of stories, as some news sites may block frequent requests from the same IP.

Quick Setup Guide

Import and configure this workflow in under 10 minutes.

  1. Import the JSON: Download the template file and import it into your n8n workspace.
  2. Add Credentials: Create an "OpenAI" credential with your API key and an "SMTP" credential with your email server details.
  3. Configure Nodes: Assign the credentials to the "GPT 5 pro" and "Send email" nodes. Update the `fromEmail` and `toEmail` fields in the email node.
  4. Set the Schedule: Adjust the "Start" trigger node to run at your preferred time (e.g., daily at 8 AM).
  5. Activate & Test: Turn the workflow on and run it once manually to verify everything works and your first digest arrives.

Key Benefits

Saves 5-10 hours per week. Eliminate the daily ritual of visiting multiple news sites and reading lengthy articles. Get all the signal without the noise.

Ensures you never miss a breakthrough. Automated systems don't get distracted. Every top AI story from Hacker News is captured, summarized, and delivered, guaranteeing comprehensive coverage.

Improves team alignment. Share the same curated digest with your team or clients to ensure everyone is discussing the same developments with the same context.

Highly customizable. Easily change the keyword filter from "AI" to any topic (e.g., "machine learning," "LLM," "robotics"). Adjust the GPT prompt to focus on business impact, technical details, or sentiment.

Scalable and reliable. Built on n8n's robust engine, the workflow handles errors gracefully, retries failed steps, and runs unattended, providing a set-and-forget solution.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about AI news automation and integration

The most efficient way is to automate the process. Use a workflow that aggregates top stories from sources like Hacker News, filters them for AI content, and delivers concise summaries directly to your inbox. This saves 5-10 hours per week compared to manual research.

Automation ensures consistency and breadth of coverage that manual scanning can't match, turning a daily chore into a background process that feeds you actionable intelligence.

AI-generated summaries distill complex articles into key takeaways, making information consumption faster for busy teams. Automated digests ensure everyone receives the same curated insights, fostering aligned discussions and reducing information silos.

For example, a product team can use the digest to quickly identify new AI tools that could impact their roadmap, while the marketing team can spot trends for content, all from the same automated source.

Yes, when done responsibly. Use official APIs where available (like Hacker News), respect robots.txt, implement rate limiting, and cache results. The workflow includes error handling and respects source terms, making it a reliable and ethical automation.

For sources without APIs, the workflow uses best practices like polite delays between requests and user-agent identification to minimize the impact on target websites.

GPT can extract core arguments, identify trends, and present insights in a consistent, readable format. It removes bias from human summarization, scales to process hundreds of articles instantly, and can be customized to highlight specific topics or sentiment.

Unlike simple keyword extraction, GPT understands context, can identify the "so what" of an article, and even tailor the summary tone for different audiences (technical vs. business-focused).

Absolutely. You can modify the keyword filters beyond 'AI' to any topic (e.g., 'machine learning', 'LLM', 'robotics'). Adjust the GPT prompts to focus on business implications, technical details, or competitor analysis based on your team's needs.

The workflow is a template—you can add additional data sources, integrate sentiment analysis, or route summaries to different channels like Slack or a database for further analysis.

Very reliable when using established SMTP services (like Gmail, SendGrid, or AWS SES). The workflow includes error handling for failed sends and can be set to retry. For critical updates, you can add fallback notifications to Slack or Teams.

Delivery success rates typically exceed 99% with professional email services. The workflow logs all send attempts, so you can monitor performance and troubleshoot any issues quickly.

Costs are minimal. Using n8n's free tier covers the orchestration. OpenAI API calls for summarization cost pennies per digest (approx $0.02-$0.10 per day). Email sending is often free within limits. Total monthly cost is typically under $5.

This represents a massive return on investment compared to the hourly rate of a human researcher or the opportunity cost of your own time spent manually curating news.

Yes, GrowwStacks specializes in building tailored automation systems. We can create a custom workflow that aggregates from your preferred sources (industry blogs, research papers, competitor sites), applies your specific filters, and delivers formatted reports to your team's preferred channels.

Our team can integrate additional data sources, add sentiment analysis, include internal data, format outputs for your CRM, and build dashboards—transforming raw information into a strategic intelligence asset.

  • Multi-source aggregation beyond Hacker News
  • Custom filtering logic and priority scoring
  • Integration with your internal tools and databases
  • Advanced analytics and trend reporting

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