# Build an n8n AI agent that knows today's news (MCP or plain HTTP) > Source: > Published: 2026-11-13 00:00:00+00:00 # Build an n8n AI agent that knows today's news (MCP or plain HTTP) n8n's AI Agent only knows what its model learned in training. Two ways to fix it: connect an MCP server so the agent searches the web and news by itself, or call a news API from an HTTP Request node in a scheduled workflow. Step by step, no code. n8n's **AI Agent** node is great at reasoning over what you give it. Ask it about something that happened this morning, though, and it can only guess: the model behind it stopped learning months ago. This guide shows two ways to give an n8n workflow live news and web search: 1. **Agent mode:** connect an MCP server to the AI Agent node. The agent decides when to search the news, search the web or read an article in full. Best for chat-style workflows and research tasks. 2. **Pipeline mode:** a scheduled workflow calls a news API with the**HTTP Request** node, then an LLM summarises the results and sends them to Slack, Telegram or email. Best for daily briefs and keyword alerts. Both use the same API key. The examples use [NestDaddy](https://nestdaddy.com/mcp), an independent search engine with its own web index and news collection. A free 7-day key (5,000 calls, no card) is enough to build and test both. ## Option 1: AI Agent + MCP Client Tool ### What you build ``` php Chat Trigger -> AI Agent (model: any chat model you use in n8n) |-- MCP Client Tool -> NestDaddy (news, web search, read page...) ``` ### Steps 1. Add a **Chat Trigger** node (or any trigger that passes a question). 2. Add an **AI Agent** node and connect your chat model (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Ollama or any model you already use in n8n). 3. On the agent's **Tool** input, add an**MCP Client Tool** node: -**Endpoint:**`https://mcp.nestdaddy.com/mcp` -** Server Transport:** HTTP Streamable -**Authentication:** Bearer Auth, with a credential that holds your key (or Header Auth with`Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY` ) 4. Leave "Tools to include" on all tools, or pick the ones you need (for a news assistant: `news_search` ,`country_news` ,`read_page` ). 5. In the agent's system message, tell it when to use the tools: ``` You answer questions about current events. Always use news_search for anything that may have happened recently, and read_page to read the one or two most relevant articles in full before answering. Mention the date of each fact and list the article URLs you used. ``` Open the chat and ask something like *"What changed in EU AI rules this week?"*. In the execution log you will see the agent call `news_search`, then `read_page`, then answer with sources. ### Why MCP instead of hard-coded HTTP calls - The agent chooses **which** tool to call and**what** to search for, based on the question. - One node gives the agent several tools: news by key words, country news, web search, page reading and research papers. - The same server works in Claude, Cursor and VS Code, so you test prompts once and reuse them everywhere ([Claude setup](https://nestdaddy.com/blog/add-live-web-search-to-claude-mcp) ,[Cursor setup](https://nestdaddy.com/blog/cursor-web-search-mcp) ). ## Option 2: scheduled news brief with HTTP Request ### What you build ``` php Schedule Trigger (every morning) -> HTTP Request (news search for your topics) -> AI Agent / LLM (summarise into a short brief) -> Slack / Telegram / Send Email ``` ### Steps 1. **Schedule Trigger:** every day at 07:00 in your time zone. 2. **HTTP Request** node: -**Method:** GET -**URL:**`https://nestdaddy.com/api/v1/news/search` -** Authentication:** Generic Credential Type → Header Auth, with header name`X-API-Key` and your key as the value -**Query parameters:** | Name | Value | Notes | |---|---|---| | `q` | `OpenAI` | Your topic, as key words | | `days` | `1` | Only the last day | | `limit` | `15` | Enough for a brief | | `country` | `GB` | Optional: only news from one country (two-letter code) | The response has a `results` list; each item has `title`, `url`, `source_domain`, `published_timestamp` and `description`. 3. **AI Agent** (or a plain LLM node) with a prompt like: ``` Here are today's news results as JSON: {{ JSON.stringify($json.results) }} Write a brief for a busy reader: at most 6 bullet points, each one sentence, merge duplicates of the same story, and end each bullet with the source link. ``` 1. **Slack** ,**Telegram** or**Send Email** node: send the agent's output. Several topics? Put a small list in a **Code** node before the HTTP Request (one item per topic); n8n runs the request once per item, and a **Merge** or **Aggregate** node collects them again before the summary. ### Keyword alerts instead of a daily brief Change the schedule to every 30 or 60 minutes, set `days` to `1`, and add an **IF** node that only continues when `results` is not empty. To avoid sending the same story twice, keep the URLs you already sent (n8n's workflow static data in a Code node, or a small table in your database) and filter them out. ## Which option should you use? | You want | Use | |---|---| | A chat assistant that answers questions about current events | Option 1 (MCP) | | A research step inside a bigger agent workflow | Option 1 (MCP) | | A fixed daily or hourly brief | Option 2 (HTTP Request) | | Alerts when a company, product or person appears in the news | Option 2 with an IF node | Many workflows use both: a scheduled brief for the team, and an agent for follow-up questions. ## Costs and limits Every MCP tool call or HTTP request counts as one call; connecting the MCP server and listing tools is free. A daily brief over three topics uses about 90 calls a month, and an agent that reads two articles per question uses three or four calls per question. Plans start at $9.99 a month for 10,000 calls after the free 7-day trial: [get a key](https://nestdaddy.com/apis). Prefer code over nodes? The same daily brief in Python, with dedupe and Telegram, Slack or email delivery: [Build a daily news digest bot in Python](https://nestdaddy.com/blog/news-digest-bot-python).