Guide

How to turn Google Alerts into one daily AI news digest with Zapier

By Newsprint · Last updated · First published

The short answer

Have Gmail file your Google Alerts under one label, then build a four-step Zap: a Gmail "New Email" trigger on the label, Digest by Zapier to release the day's alerts once, an AI step prompted to remove duplicates and rank the stories, and Gmail "Send Email" to deliver the result [1][2][3][4]. Zapier's Free plan runs only two-step Zaps, so you need Professional, which starts at $19.99 a month billed yearly as of Oct. 21, 2026 [5]. The ChatGPT and Claude steps need your own API key, billed by OpenAI or Anthropic and separate from any ChatGPT plan [6][7], while AI by Zapier needs no separate AI account [12] but uses Zapier tasks [8].

The same digest on three automation tools (prices as of Oct. 21, 2026)
ZapierMaken8n
Reads the alert emails withGmail New Email trigger on a label [3]Gmail Search emails module [15]Gmail node, Get Many messages [21]
Batches the day withDigest by Zapier, released daily [4]A daily schedule and an aggregator [14][17]Schedule Trigger and Aggregate nodes [20][22]
AI stepYour OpenAI or Anthropic key, or AI by Zapier [6][7][8]Your OpenAI key, or the Simple text prompt module [18]Your OpenAI key, or Gateway credits on n8n Cloud [23]
Lowest plan that runs itProfessional, from $19.99 a month billed yearly [5]Not verified for this guideCloud Starter, 20€ a month billed annually, or self-hosted [24]

Track your company, five competitors, and two industry topics in Google Alerts, and you have eight alerts filling your inbox, each a list of Google Search results for a name you typed [1]. The competitor’s new price or the proposed rule with a comment deadline ends up under the ones you skipped.

This recipe turns that pile into one email a day. Gmail files every alert under one label, Zapier holds them until a time you choose, and an AI step removes duplicates, drops what isn’t about you, and ranks the rest, one line per story with its link.

What you need

Prices are as of Oct. 21, 2026.

  • A Google account with Gmail. Alerts arrive from googlealerts-noreply@google.com [1].
  • A paid Zapier plan, because the Free plan runs only two-step Zaps and this one has four [5]. Professional starts at $19.99 a month billed yearly, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card [5].
  • An AI step, from one of three apps:
    • ChatGPT (OpenAI), with your own OpenAI API key on prepaid billing. Zapier says that’s separate from ChatGPT’s plans, so you don’t need a ChatGPT subscription, and OpenAI charges for tokens as you use them [6].
    • Anthropic (Claude), with a paid Anthropic account, API access, and a key from the Anthropic Console [7].
    • AI by Zapier, which needs no separate AI account and includes GPT-4o mini [12]. It costs one, three, or five Zapier tasks per AI step, depending on the model tier [8].

The Digest step costs no tasks [8], and Zapier never charges a task to check for new data [5]. The Gmail “Send Email” action is a standard step at one task, and the AI step costs what its app charges [8].

Send every alert to one Gmail label

  1. Go to google.com/alerts and type a name or topic into the box at the top [1]. Make one alert per name: your company, each competitor, and one or two industry phrases.
  2. Click “Show options” [1] and set “How often” to “At most once a day” [9]. Pick “Only the best results” for less noise or “All results” to give the AI step everything, and set language, region, and source types if you like [9]. Send the alert to the Gmail account you’ll connect to Zapier [1].
  3. Click “Create Alert” [1], and repeat for each name.
  4. In Gmail, open the search options, enter googlealerts-noreply@google.com as the sender, and click “Create filter” [2]. Have it apply a label called alerts-digest, and archive the emails if you don’t want them in your inbox [2]. The Make and n8n versions below search for that exact name.

Build the Zap

  1. Trigger: Gmail, “New Email.” It fires when a new email appears in the label or mailbox you pick [3], so pick alerts-digest. It picks up only emails that arrive after you turn the Zap on, with no backfill [10].
  2. Action: Digest by Zapier, “Append Entry and Schedule Digest.” [4] Give it a title of 32 characters or fewer, such as Daily news digest [4]. Map the email’s subject and body into the entry, add a line of three hyphens (---) so the AI step can tell one email from the next, and check in the test sample that the body still shows the article links. Set the frequency to Daily and pick the release time. With “Trigger on Weekends?” set to No, weekend alerts land in Monday’s digest [4].
  3. Action: the AI step. Map the Digest step’s “Current Digest” field into it [4].
    • ChatGPT (OpenAI): use “Conversation” or “Analyze Text,” two of the actions Zapier marks as recommended [6], with a generous token limit, since Zapier warns that a limit set too low can return empty text [6].
    • Anthropic (Claude): use “Send Message” [7], with the prompt below in “System” and the digest in “User Message” [11].
    • AI by Zapier: paste the prompt and the digest into the AI step, and check which model tier you picked, since that sets the task cost [8].
  4. Action: Gmail, “Send Email.” [3] Send it to yourself with a subject such as News digest, and map the AI step’s output into the body [3].
  5. Test and publish. Runs show “Delayed” until the digest releases at the time you set, which is normal [4].

The prompt for the AI step

Fill in the brackets and paste the whole thing into the prompt field, with the digest mapped where the last line says.

You write a daily news digest for [Your company], which sells [one-line description].
Track these names and topics:
- Our company: [Your company]
- Competitors: [Competitor 1], [Competitor 2], [Competitor 3]
- Industry: [Topic 1], [Topic 2]

Below are today's Google Alerts emails, separated by lines of "---".
Read every search result in each email.

Do this:
1. Ignore Google's own text and links in each email, such as settings and Unsubscribe links.
2. Remove duplicates. Two results are duplicates when they report the same event, even if the
   outlet, headline, or link differs. Keep one entry per event.
3. Keep only stories about the names and topics above. Drop a different company with the same
   name, job listings, stock-quote pages, and reposted press releases with nothing new.
4. Sort what is left into three sections, in this order: "Our company", "Competitors",
   "Industry". Inside each section, put the most important story first. Funding, acquisitions,
   launches, pricing, executive moves, lawsuits, regulation, and major customer wins rank highest.
5. Write one line per story: what happened, in plain words, then the outlet's name and the link.
6. Copy every link exactly as it appears in the input. Do not shorten, rewrite, or invent links.
   Use only facts that appear in the input.
7. If a section has no stories, write "Nothing new." Do not pad it with weaker stories.
   If no section has anything, the whole digest is one line: "Nothing new today."

Return plain text for an email body. Put each section name on its own line, then one story per
line, with a blank line between sections. No greeting, no summary, no sign-off.

Today's alert emails:
[Map the Digest step's "Current Digest" field here]

Rule 7 lets a quiet day read as quiet, and plain text keeps every link visible before you click. We didn’t test what the AI step returns, so check the first few digests against the alert emails, and click through to the article before you act on a line or forward it.

What about the RSS feed option

Some third-party guides switch each alert to an RSS feed and paste the feed URLs into Zapier. Google’s one Alerts help article describes email delivery and never mentions RSS, feed URLs, or a limit on how many alerts you can keep [1], and signed out, the Alerts page shows no delivery setting at all [9]. If your signed-in Alerts page does offer a feed, RSS by Zapier’s “New Items in Multiple Feeds” trigger reads several feed URLs at once and replaces the Gmail steps [13]. Google can change an undocumented feature without notice, though, so this guide sticks with email.

The same digest in Make

In Make, a daily schedule and a search for the last day’s alerts do the batching [14][15].

  1. Schedule the scenario to run Daily at your send time [14].
  2. Add Gmail “Search emails,” choose the “Gmail filter” type, and enter label:alerts-digest newer_than:1d [15][16].
  3. Add an aggregator to merge the found emails into one bundle [17].
  4. Add the OpenAI module with your own API key and credits bought from OpenAI, or the “Simple text prompt” module, which needs no OpenAI account [18]. Use the prompt above.
  5. Add Gmail “Send an email” [15].

Make says a personal @gmail.com connection has to be reauthorized every six months [19]. We couldn’t verify Make’s current prices, so check its pricing page before you pick a plan.

The same digest in n8n

  1. Add a Schedule Trigger set to your send time [20].
  2. Add a Gmail node with Message, “Get Many” [21]. In its filters, set Search to label:alerts-digest newer_than:1d and Read Status to “Unread and read emails,” since the default is unread only [21]. Turn Simplify off, because the simplified version returns only IDs, labels, and headers, not the email body [21].
  3. Add an Aggregate node set to “All Item Data” to put the emails into one item [22].
  4. Add an OpenAI node with “Generate a Model Response.” Use your own key, or Gateway credits if you run n8n Cloud [23]. Use the prompt above.
  5. Add a Gmail node with Message, “Send” [21].

n8n bills per execution, one run of the whole workflow however many steps it has, so a daily schedule is 30 or 31 executions a month [24]. Cloud Starter is 20€ a month billed annually for 2.5K executions, and the self-hosted Community Edition is on GitHub [24].

Where the recipe falls short

The digest is only as good as the alerts behind it. Google promises email “whenever we find matching search results” and publishes nothing about which sources it covers [1]. It doesn’t say whether a story that names your competitor’s product but not the company will match an alert on the company’s name, and an outlet Google Search doesn’t surface won’t appear at all. Add a competitor to the prompt but forget its alert, and the AI step has nothing to rank for it unless another alert happens to mention it.

It’s also one more system to keep running. Zapier set its ChatGPT actions that use OpenAI’s Assistants API to stop working on Aug. 26, 2026 [6], Make wants a fresh Gmail authorization every six months [19], and a digest tops out at 1 MB, with 1,500 digest records per account in all [4]. When a step breaks, the digest stops or comes out thin, and you have to notice.

If you’d rather not run it yourself

Newsprint doesn’t depend on alerts you remembered to set. It writes a coverage plan from your company’s website, searches wire services, national and business press, and your industry’s trade publications, and sends one brief by email early each weekday morning in your time zone. You change what it covers by replying, and it’s $300 a month for the whole company, with as many readers as you like and no contract.

What Newsprint does not do

Send alerts the minute a story breaks

Google Alerts can send "As-it-happens" [9]. Newsprint sends one brief each weekday morning, plus one on demand if you reply and ask. Alerts through the day come with a custom Teams plan, priced in a conversation.

Cost less than this recipe

This recipe runs on Zapier Professional from $19.99 a month billed yearly, plus whatever your AI provider bills [5][6]. Newsprint is $300 a month for the whole company.

Give you a search box or dashboard

There's no search box, dashboard, or coverage report to pull. You change what the brief covers by replying to it, and a reply can ask for a brief on a topic.

Get every story right

An AI picks and summarizes the stories, and it can get one wrong. You can reply to report it, but a brief that's already gone out can't be recalled.

Open paywalls

Each story links to the original article, and some of those articles sit behind a subscription.

Questions people ask

Can I build this on Zapier's free plan?

No. Free runs two-step Zaps, and this one has four: the Gmail trigger, the Digest, the AI step, and the email. Zapier offers a 14-day trial of Professional with no credit card [5].

Does my ChatGPT Plus subscription pay for the AI step?

No. Zapier's ChatGPT (OpenAI) app needs an OpenAI account with prepaid billing, which Zapier says is separate from ChatGPT's plans [6]. To skip a separate AI bill, use AI by Zapier, which spends your Zapier tasks instead [8].

Can I use Google Alerts RSS feeds instead of email?

Google's Alerts help describes email delivery only and doesn't mention RSS or feed URLs [1]. If your Alerts page offers a feed, Zapier's RSS trigger can read it [13], but you'd be relying on a feature Google doesn't document.

How many Google Alerts can I create?

Google's help doesn't publish a limit [1]. Each extra alert is more email for the AI step to read, and one digest holds at most 1 MB [4].

Why didn't my first digest arrive?

The Zap only picks up emails that arrive after you turn it on [10], and its runs show "Delayed" until the digest releases at the time you set [4]. If the email arrives empty, raise the AI step's token limit [6].

Will the digest catch every story about my company?

Don't count on it. Google emails you when it finds matching search results and publishes no list of the sources it covers [1], and the AI step can only rank what the alerts sent.

Sources

  1. Create an alert. Google Search Help. Read .
  2. Create rules to filter your emails. Gmail Help. Read .
  3. Gmail Integrations. Zapier. Read .
  4. Compile data in a digest in Zap workflows. Zapier Help Center. Read .
  5. Plans & Pricing. Zapier. Read .
  6. How to get started with ChatGPT (OpenAI) on Zapier. Zapier Help Center. Read .
  7. How to get started with Anthropic (Claude) on Zapier. Zapier Help Center. Read .
  8. Zapier Tasks Explained. Zapier. Read .
  9. Google Alerts. Google. Read .
  10. How Zap triggers work. Zapier Help Center. Read .
  11. Anthropic (Claude) Integrations. Zapier. Read .
  12. AI by Zapier Integrations. Zapier. Read .
  13. Trigger Zap workflows from new RSS feed items. Zapier Help Center. Read .
  14. Schedule a scenario. Make Help Center. Read .
  15. Gmail modules. Make Apps Documentation. Read .
  16. Refine searches in Gmail. Gmail Help. Read .
  17. Aggregator. Make Help Center. Read .
  18. OpenAI (ChatGPT, Whisper). Make Apps Documentation. Read .
  19. Gmail. Make Apps Documentation. Read .
  20. Schedule Trigger. n8n Docs. Read .
  21. Gmail node message operations. n8n Docs. Read .
  22. Aggregate. n8n Docs. Read .
  23. OpenAI. n8n Docs. Read .
  24. n8n Plans and Pricing. n8n. Read .

Skip the Zap and get the brief

Your first brief arrives about 15 minutes after you reply YES to the confirmation. The first brief is free and needs no credit card. The daily brief is $300 a month for the whole company.