In this video, I walk through how to build a Telegram AI assistant using n8n that can read and send Gmail emails and manage your Google Calendar events.
What's covered:
- Overview of what the Telegram AI assistant can do (summarize emails, send emails, create, read and delete calendar events)
- Introduction to n8n and the different hosting options (cloud, Docker, Node.js, Render, Railway)
- Cloud vs self hosted n8n comparison including cost, maintenance and convenience
- n8n cloud pricing overview (starter plan at 20 euros per month)
- Creating a new workflow in n8n and naming it Telegram AI Assistant
- Creating a Telegram bot using BotFather and generating an API token
- Connecting the Telegram bot to n8n using the Telegram Trigger node (on message)
- Adding and configuring the AI Agent node and mapping the prompt from the Telegram trigger
- Connecting OpenAI GPT-4.1 Mini as the chat model and setting up OpenAI credentials
- Adding Simple Memory to give the agent conversation history (chat ID based, 5 interaction window)
- Adding the Telegram Send Text Message node so the agent can reply back
- Testing the basic workflow end to end from Telegram message to AI reply
- Adding Google Calendar as a tool to the AI agent
- Creating and testing the schedule events tool (create calendar event)
- Adding the read events tool to retrieve upcoming calendar events
- Adding the delete events tool to remove calendar events - Writing and configuring the system prompt to define the agent purpose, tools and response rules
- Live demo testing all calendar tools via Telegram chat Coming up next: adding Gmail tools to read and send emails.