Post weekly research briefs to Slack with EmpirioLabs AI and data tables

Quick Overview

This workflow runs every Monday and uses EmpirioLabs AI to research a list of topics, extract sourced findings, and post a weekly brief to Slack while tracking previously shared links in an n8n Data Table to avoid repeating sources.

How it works

1. Runs every Monday at 8:00 on a schedule trigger.
2. Loads brief settings, ensures an n8n Data Table exists, and fetches all source URLs posted in previous briefs.
3. Splits the configured topic list into one item per topic and researches each topic with an EmpirioLabs AI model that searches for recent developments.
4. Uses EmpirioLabs AI again to convert each research answer into a structured JSON list of findings with a headline, short summary, and source URL.
5. Validates each finding by keeping only URLs that appear in the research answer and removing any links that were posted in earlier briefs, then marks topics as having new findings, only repeats, no sourced findings, or failed research.
6. Builds a single Slack-ready brief grouped by topic and, when there are new links, generates a short “In short” summary from the validated findings using EmpirioLabs AI.
7. Posts the brief to a Slack channel and saves each posted source URL to the n8n Data Table so future runs can skip them.

Setup

1. Install the EmpirioLabs AI community node (n8n-nodes-empiriolabs) and add an EmpirioLabs AI API key credential.
2. Add a Slack credential/connection and select the target channel in the Slack message step.
3. Update the topic list, audience, lookback window, findings per topic, and Data Table name in the brief settings.
4. Select the EmpirioLabs AI models to use for research/search, JSON extraction, and summarization in the three EmpirioLabs AI steps.