Plan AJ: AI Industry Newsletter

Subscribe sources → aggregate news → AI digest → layout → scheduled send

Time
1-2 hours / issue
Cost
Low
Difficulty
Advanced

Best for

For operators running a daily or weekly newsletter in a vertical industry — automating research and first drafts.

Steps

Subscribe sources

30 min

n8n / Zapier Agents

Use RSS or scraping nodes to funnel target sources (official blogs, industry media, competitor news) into one inbox. Tag by topic and dedupe repeated coverage.

💡Perfect ~10 high-quality sources first — info noise is a newsletter's worst enemy.

Aggregate news

20-30 min

Perplexity

For major events, use Perplexity to research context and collect multiple angles. Keep only what readers genuinely need to know; drop the rest.

💡Ask three questions daily: what happened today, who does it affect, what to watch next.

AI digest

30-40 min

ChatGPT

Feed the filtered raw items to the model and have it output a fixed structure: one-line summary + key facts + editorial note. A fixed template keeps every issue's format consistent.

💡Feed the previous issue as a few-shot example and the output style aligns automatically.

Layout

20-30 min

Notion

Apply a newsletter template in Notion, fill in summaries and links, and check headings and hierarchy. Add a table of contents, bold key points and source links.

💡Store date/topic/status in Notion database fields for easy re-sends and history.

Scheduled send

30 min

n8n / Zapier Agents + email platform

Set a fixed daily/weekly time to auto-draft and send; run 2-3 issues manually first to confirm stability. After launch, track open and click rates to tune topics and headlines.

💡Pick the time when your subscribers are most active, then scale frequency once data supports it.

Tools involved

Pitfalls to avoid

Too many, too noisy sources

An over-fed aggregator produces a grab bag; keep under 10 curated sources.

Distorted AI summaries

Digesting drops detail or cherry-picks context; manually verify key items against the original.

Fully hands-off automation

A broken auto-flow goes unnoticed; spot-check weekly at the start.

Clickbait burning trust

Blown-up headlines on thin content spike unsubscribes; let headlines match the content.

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