How to Build a Daily AI Digest in Claude Cowork

The Problem (and What We're Building)

I was subscribed to 30+ newsletters. I read maybe 2 of them.

Every morning my inbox was full of Substack posts, industry updates, and interesting articles that I told myself I'd "read later." I never did. But I also didn't want to unsubscribe, because some of them were genuinely great. I just didn't have time to read them all.

So I got Claude to do it for me.

The solution: Claude Cowork reads your email every morning, finds all the newsletters, summarises the important stuff, spots trends, and gives you content ideas. All in one page.

This is not some complicated automation. It's a scheduled task in Cowork. Takes about 15 minutes to set up.

What You Need

• 1Claude Desktop with Cowork. Any paid Claude plan ($20+/month). Cowork is the feature that lets Claude run tasks on a schedule and connect to your apps.
• 2Gmail connected as a connector. You'll set this up in the next section. Cowork needs read access to your email so it can find your newsletters.
• 3A separate email for newsletters (recommended but not required). Forward all your Substacks and newsletters to a dedicated address. Keeps your main inbox clean and makes the digest more focused.

Connect Your Email

This takes about two minutes. You're giving Cowork permission to read your emails so it can find newsletters.

• 1Open Claude Desktop and go to the Cowork tab.
• 2Go to Customise > Connectors. This is where you connect external apps to Cowork.
• 3Click Gmail and follow the prompts to connect your Google account.
• 4Grant read permission. Cowork needs to read your emails to find newsletters. It won't send emails or modify anything.

If you see a list of your recent emails, you're good to go. If not, go back to Connectors and try reconnecting Gmail.

Create Your First Digest (Manual Run)

Before scheduling anything, let's run the digest once manually so you can see exactly what it produces and tweak it.

Copy and paste this prompt into Cowork:

What happens: Cowork reads your recent emails, sorts through them, identifies the newsletters, pulls out the key insights, and generates your digest. This usually takes 30 to 60 seconds.

Review the output. If it's too broad, too detailed, or missing something, just tell it. Say things like "Make the post ideas more specific" or "Focus more on AI and marketing topics." You'll refine this in the next section.

Customise What You Care About

The first digest will be broad. That's normal. Now you narrow it down to the topics that actually matter to you.

Tell Cowork what to focus on:

Replace those topics with whatever you actually care about. Be specific. The more detail you give, the better the digest gets.

You can also tell it your content style:

Again, swap in your own audience and preferred formats. The point is that Cowork learns your preferences and applies them every time.

Now whenever you run the digest, you can just reference the skill and Cowork applies all your preferences automatically. This step is optional, but it makes the scheduled version much cleaner.

Schedule It to Run Automatically

This is where it gets good. Instead of running the digest manually every morning, you set it to run on a schedule. Wake up, and it's already done.

• 1Click Schedule in the Cowork sidebar.
• 2Create a new scheduled task.
• 3In the description, paste your digest prompt from Section 04. If you created a skill in Section 05, you can reference it instead (e.g. "Run my daily-digest skill").
• 4Set the frequency to Daily.
• 5Set the time to early morning. I use 6am so it's ready before I wake up. Pick whatever works for your routine.
• 6Select your working folder (wherever you want the digest saved, or just leave the default).
• 7Click Save.

That's it. Every morning, Cowork reads your emails, generates the digest, and has it waiting for you.

Turn Insights Into Content

The digest gives you 5 post ideas every day. That's 35 ideas per week. You'll never stare at a blank page again.

Every morning, scan the POST IDEAS section of your digest. Pick the one that resonates most. Then tell Cowork to run with it.

Turn a digest idea into a LinkedIn post:

Turn a digest idea into an Instagram carousel:

Batch your content for the week:

Level It Up (Optional Extras)

Once your daily digest is running smoothly, here are some ways to make it even more useful.

Add web research. Your newsletters don't cover everything. Ask Cowork to fill the gaps:

Add calendar context. Make the digest aware of your day:

Save digests as files. Build an archive you can search later:

Feed into a weekly blog post. Turn your digests into long-form content:

What You've Built

Let's take a step back and look at what you now have running.

• 1An AI that reads 30+ newsletters overnight. Every Substack, industry update, and article that lands in your inbox gets read and processed.
• 2A daily one-pager with key insights. Three themes, trend signals, and source links. Everything you need to stay informed, nothing you don't.
• 35 content ideas every single day. Pre-filtered to your topics, with hooks and formats already suggested. 35 ideas a week without lifting a finger.
• 4A content engine you can chain into. Pick an idea, tell Cowork to draft a post, and you've got content ready in minutes.

All of this runs before your first coffee.

For the Claude Code version (more powerful, fully automated, runs without your computer being on), check out the companion guide on reallyusefulai.co/guides.