Google News + Telegram: daily AI digest, summarized
You open five tabs for “quick” news. Then you lose 30 minutes, copy a couple links into Slack, and still miss the one story you actually needed.
This Telegram AI digest automation hits marketers hardest, honestly, because you need fresh angles daily. But founders scanning for market shifts and consultants prepping client updates feel the same drag. You get a clean, readable digest in Telegram without the tab hopping.
This workflow pulls headlines from Google News and Hacker News, filters for AI topics from the last 24 hours, summarizes with OpenAI, then posts the final digest to your Telegram channel. You’ll see how it works, what you need, and where teams usually tweak it.
How This Automation Works
The full n8n workflow, from trigger to final output:
n8n Workflow Template: Google News + Telegram: daily AI digest, summarized
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n0@{ icon: "mdi:cog", form: "rounded", label: "Google News AI", pos: "b", h: 48 }
n1@{ icon: "mdi:cog", form: "rounded", label: "Hacker News AI", pos: "b", h: 48 }
n2@{ icon: "mdi:cog", form: "rounded", label: "Limit Google to 10", pos: "b", h: 48 }
n3["<div style='background:#f5f5f5;padding:10px;border-radius:8px;display:inline-block;border:1px solid #e0e0e0'><img src='https://flowpast.com/wp-content/uploads/n8n-workflow-icons/code.svg' width='40' height='40' /></div><br/>Create News Object"]
n4@{ icon: "mdi:robot", form: "rounded", label: "AI News Summarizer", pos: "b", h: 48 }
n5["<div style='background:#f5f5f5;padding:10px;border-radius:8px;display:inline-block;border:1px solid #e0e0e0'><img src='https://flowpast.com/wp-content/uploads/n8n-workflow-icons/telegram.svg' width='40' height='40' /></div><br/>Send to Telegram"]
n6@{ icon: "mdi:brain", form: "rounded", label: "OpenAI Chat Model", pos: "b", h: 48 }
n7@{ icon: "mdi:play-circle", form: "rounded", label: "Schedule Trigger", pos: "b", h: 48 }
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n1 --> n3
n7 --> n0
n7 --> n1
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n2 --> n3
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The Problem: AI news is scattered, noisy, and time-expensive
Keeping up with AI news sounds simple until you try to do it consistently. Google News gives you volume, Hacker News gives you signal, and your inbox gives you… more inbox. So you bounce between sources, skim half-read threads, and tell yourself you’ll “summarize later.” Later rarely happens. Meanwhile, your team still expects a quick take, a link round-up, or a few talking points for a client call, and manual sharing turns into a daily chore.
It adds up fast. Here’s where it breaks down.
- You spend about 30 minutes a day just collecting links and deciding what matters.
- Headlines get shared without context, so conversations start with “what’s this actually saying?”
- Important AI stories slip through because you checked at the wrong time or only scanned one source.
- When you do summarize, you rewrite the same “why it matters” angle again and again.
The Solution: A daily Telegram AI digest built from Google News + HN
This n8n workflow turns scattered headlines into one daily message your team can actually read. It runs on a schedule (default is 8:00 AM), pulls the latest items from Google News RSS and a Hacker News AI feed, and then assembles a single “news payload” so the content is consistent. Next, OpenAI summarizes the most important stories and adds the missing glue: the short context that makes a headline useful. Finally, the workflow posts a formatted digest to your Telegram chat or channel, ready to skim or forward.
The workflow starts on a morning schedule. From there, it fetches both RSS sources, caps the Google feed so it doesn’t overwhelm the digest, and merges everything into one clean bundle. OpenAI generates the summary, then Telegram delivers it where you already communicate.
What You Get: Automation vs. Results
| What This Workflow Automates | Results You’ll Get |
|---|---|
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Example: What This Looks Like
Say you share AI updates to a team channel every weekday. Manually, you might skim Google News for 20 minutes, check Hacker News for another 15, then spend 10 minutes writing a quick summary and formatting links, which is about 45 minutes total. With this workflow: you spend maybe 5 minutes glancing at the Telegram AI digest and forwarding the one or two stories that matter. That’s roughly 40 minutes back per day, and the update still happens.
What You’ll Need
- n8n instance (try n8n Cloud free)
- Self-hosting option if you prefer (Hostinger works well)
- Telegram for delivering the digest to a chat.
- OpenAI to summarize and prioritize the headlines.
- OpenAI API key (get it from the OpenAI dashboard).
Skill level: Beginner. You’ll paste in a few credentials, pick your RSS feeds, and test a run.
Don’t want to set this up yourself? Talk to an automation expert (free 15-minute consultation).
How It Works
A scheduled morning trigger runs it. By default, the workflow fires at 8:00 AM, but you can move it to your time zone or run it twice a day if you want a mid-afternoon catch-up.
RSS feeds are pulled from two places. It reads a Google News RSS feed and a Hacker News AI feed, then caps the Google items so your digest stays scannable instead of turning into a wall of links.
Everything is assembled into one payload for summarization. A small code step consolidates the articles and prepares the text that the AI model will review, which keeps summaries consistent even when the sources format things differently.
OpenAI writes the digest, then Telegram posts it. The OpenAI Chat Model generates concise summaries with clear takeaways, and the Telegram node sends the final formatted message to your chosen chat or channel.
You can easily modify the RSS sources to cover different topics (security, fintech, your competitors) based on your needs. See the full implementation guide below for customization options.
Step-by-Step Implementation Guide
Step 1: Configure the Schedule Trigger
Set the daily schedule so the workflow runs automatically each morning.
- Add the Scheduled Run Trigger node and open its settings.
- Set the Rule to a cron expression with Expression as
0 8 * * *to run at 8:00 AM daily. - Confirm the execution flow: Scheduled Run Trigger outputs to both Fetch Google AI Feed and Retrieve HN AI Feed in parallel.
Step 2: Connect RSS Data Sources
Pull AI news from Google News and Hacker News in parallel, then cap the Google feed results.
- Configure Fetch Google AI Feed with URL set to
https://news.google.com/rss/topics/CAAqIAgKIhpDQkFTRFFvSEwyMHZNRzFyZWhJQ1pXNG9BQVAB?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en. - Configure Retrieve HN AI Feed with URL set to
https://hnrss.org/newest?q=ai&points=10&count=10. - Set Cap Google Items to limit the feed by setting Max Items to
10. - Verify the sequence: Fetch Google AI Feed → Cap Google Items → Assemble News Payload and Retrieve HN AI Feed → Assemble News Payload.
Step 3: Set Up Data Assembly and AI Summarization
Combine the feeds into a unified payload and generate a concise AI digest.
- In Assemble News Payload, keep the JavaScript Code as provided to filter items containing “AI” and output structured
googleNewsandhackerNewsarrays. - In Summarize News Digest, set the Prompt to the full prompt text provided, including the expression
{{ $json.toJsonString() }}for the news payload. - Connect OpenAI Chat Engine as the language model for Summarize News Digest via the AI language model connection.
- Credential Required: Connect your openAiApi credentials in OpenAI Chat Engine (the AI sub-node uses the parent’s credentials).
- Confirm the flow: Assemble News Payload → Summarize News Digest.
Step 4: Configure the Telegram Delivery
Send the AI-generated digest to Telegram with a branded header.
- Open Dispatch Telegram Digest and set Text to
=🤖 AI News Daily Digest\n\n{{ $json.text }}. - Credential Required: Connect your telegramApi credentials in Dispatch Telegram Digest.
- Ensure the flow is Summarize News Digest → Dispatch Telegram Digest.
Step 5: Test and Activate Your Workflow
Validate the end-to-end automation and then switch it on for daily delivery.
- Click Execute Workflow to run a manual test from Scheduled Run Trigger.
- Confirm that Dispatch Telegram Digest sends a message containing the AI digest with both “Google News” and “Hacker News” sections.
- If the output is empty or too long, review the feeds and the prompt in Summarize News Digest.
- Toggle the workflow to Active to enable scheduled daily runs.
Common Gotchas
- Telegram bot credentials can expire or get mismatched with the chat ID. If things break, check your bot token and the target chat/channel ID in Telegram first.
- If you’re using Wait nodes or external processing, execution times vary. Bump up the wait duration if downstream nodes fail because they received an empty summary.
- Default prompts in the OpenAI summarization step are generic. Add your brand voice and “what we care about” early or you will be editing outputs forever.
Frequently Asked Questions
About 20 minutes if your Telegram bot is ready.
No. You’ll connect Telegram and OpenAI, then paste in your RSS feed URLs.
Yes. n8n has a free self-hosted option and a free trial on n8n Cloud. Cloud plans start at $20/month for higher volume. You’ll also need to factor in OpenAI API costs, which are usually a few cents per daily digest.
Two options: n8n Cloud (managed, easiest setup) or self-hosting on a VPS. For self-hosting, Hostinger VPS is affordable and handles n8n well. Self-hosting gives you unlimited executions but requires basic server management.
Yes, and it’s the most common tweak. Replace the Google News RSS URL (the “Fetch Google AI Feed” step) and adjust the prompt used in “Summarize News Digest” so OpenAI prioritizes your topic. Many teams switch it to competitor monitoring, security updates, or a niche like “AI in healthcare.” You can also change how many items pass through by editing the “Cap Google Items” limit.
Usually it’s a bad bot token or the wrong chat ID. Recheck what @BotFather gave you, make sure the bot is added to the channel/group, and confirm it has permission to post. If it worked once and then stopped, regenerate the token and update it in n8n. Rate limits are rare here, but they can show up if you start posting big multi-message digests.
A typical daily run handles a couple dozen headlines comfortably, and you can raise or lower that with the limit step.
For a daily digest like this, n8n is usually easier to scale without extra fees because you can self-host and add more logic when you outgrow a simple “RSS → message” zap. It also gives you tighter control over how items are merged, capped, and formatted before the AI summary runs. Zapier or Make can still work if you want the simplest setup and don’t care much about filtering quality. The tradeoff is you may hit limits faster once you add multiple feeds, AI steps, or richer formatting. Talk to an automation expert if you want a quick recommendation for your setup.
Once this is running, your daily news check becomes a single Telegram message instead of a mini research project. The workflow handles the repetitive stuff, so you can focus on what the news means for your business.
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