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Over the last few weeks, we’ve covered a lot:
The AI Agents Crash Course → a primer on what agents are and why they matter
The 30 AI Agents list → real-world use cases you can deploy in your business today
If you’ve been following along, you should now have the what and the why.
But here’s the missing piece: the how.
Today’s post is all about building your first AI agent from scratch—no code, no overthinking, just a step-by-step walkthrough.
And not just any agent… we’re going to build one of the most valuable you can have in your toolkit:
👉 An AI research agent that replaces hours of manual digging (or expensive freelancers) and delivers polished reports while you grab a coffee.
By the end of this post, you’ll have a workflow you can reuse across projects, clients, or your own business.
🧠 What We’re Building
Think of this as your personal research assistant—one that:
Reads across multiple sources online
Analyzes and synthesizes the information
Produces polished summaries, insights, and recommendations
Auto-formats everything into Google Docs
Even drafts blog posts, LinkedIn updates, and tweets based on the findings
👉 Imagine this: You type “research AI chatbot market”, grab a coffee, and 30 minutes later, a 10-page competitive analysis lands in your Google Drive. Complete with market size, trends, and recommendations.
That’s what we’re building today. Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Set Up Your Tools (20 min)
Your AI Brain
Create an OpenAI account
Add $20–30 in credits (research uses more tokens)
Grab your API key and save it securely
Use GPT-4o for best quality
Watch this video to learn how you can get your API keys:
Your Workflow Platform
Head to n8n.cloud
Start the free trial
Familiarize yourself with the dashboard
Connect Your Apps
Google Drive → Save reports automatically
Gmail → Email yourself when reports are ready
Click "Credentials" in n8n
Add "Google Drive"
Connect your account
Test it
Repeat for “Gmail”
Detailed n8n steps on how to connect: Click here
Step 2: Build the Research Machine (45 min)
Create Workflow in n8n
Name it Research Machine
Add a Trigger
Manual Trigger with input
research_topic
Web Search
Use Tavily API for search results
Free API key available
AI Agent Node
Model: GPT-4o
Your OpenAI key
Prompt:
You're an expert market researcher.
Take the search results and create a professional report with:
1. Executive Summary (3 key findings)
2. Market Overview
3. Key Players & Competitors
4. Trends & Opportunities
5. Recommendations
Write like a consultant. Use bullet points. Cite sources. Make it actionable.
Test It
Click "Execute Workflow"
Type "AI chatbot market 2025"
Watch the magic happen
🎉 You just replaced a $150 freelancer with a $3 AI agent.
Step 3: Supercharge with MCP (30 min)
Want deeper, fresher insights? Add MCP (Model Context Protocol):
Install
n8n-nodes-mcpin Community NodesAdd an MCP client for Tavily search
Expand prompt to include:
Market Size & Growth
Competitive Landscape
Recent News & Developments
Future Outlook
Prompt:
You're an advanced market researcher with multiple data sources.
For each research request:
1. Search web for general market info
2. Find recent news and developments
3. Look for industry reports
4. Analyze competitors
Create reports with:
- Executive Summary
- Market Size & Growth
- Competitive Landscape
- Recent News & Developments
- Future Outlook
- Action Items
Always cite sources. Be specific. Make it valuable.
Now your agent won’t just pull articles—it’ll triangulate across multiple sources like a pro consultant.
⏱️ The 2-Hour Build Recap
Set up OpenAI + n8n + integrations (20 min)
Build core research workflow (45 min)
Enhance with MCP (60 min)
At this point, you’ve got a full research engine running. Now, if you’re thinking: “This is awesome, but I don’t have time to set all this up myself…”
That’s where tools like Lindy come in.
The Simplest Way To Create and Launch AI Agents
Imagine if ChatGPT and Zapier had a baby. It’d be ridiculously smart… and probably named Lindy.
With Lindy, you can spin up AI agents in minutes to handle all the stuff you’d rather not—like lead qual, cold outreach, web scraping, and other “ugh” tasks. It’s like hiring a whole team that never sleeps, never complains, and never asks for PTO.
Lindy’s agents are ready to take on support tickets, data entry, lead enrichment, scheduling, and more. All so you can get back to the fun part: building your business.
Ready to hand off the busy work? Build your first AI agent today and join thousands of businesses already saving time (and sanity) with automation that actually works.
Your Homework
👉 Pick one topic you’ve been meaning to research.
👉 Feed it to your agent.
👉 See what happens.
Then hit reply and tell me:
What you researched
How much time you saved
What surprised you most
I’ll feature the best stories in next week’s edition.
Until next time,
— Abhi