Building Your First AI Automation Workflow with n8n

n8n is a powerful workflow automation tool that lets you build AI-powered automations. This guide walks through building a complete workflow from scratch.

What We're Building

An AI-powered customer feedback analyzer that:

1. Collects feedback from Google Forms
2. Analyzes sentiment with AI
3. Categorizes feedback by topic
4. Sends summary reports to Slack
5. Logs everything to Google Sheets

Setting Up n8n

Option 1: Cloud: Sign up at n8n.cloud (free tier available)

Option 2: Self-hosted:

docker run -it --rm   --name n8n   -p 5678:5678   -v ~/.n8n:/home/node/.n8n   n8nio/n8n

Building the Workflow

Step 1: Webhook Trigger

Add a Webhook node as the trigger. This gives you a URL to receive form submissions.

Step 2: Process with AI

Add an OpenAI node to analyze the feedback:

• Model: gpt-4
• Messages: Include the feedback text
• Prompt: "Analyze the sentiment (positive/negative/neutral) and categorize this feedback into one of: pricing, features, support, other"

Step 3: Add Conditional Logic

Use an IF node to route:

• Negative feedback → alert channel (urgent)
• Positive feedback → weekly digest
• Feature requests → product team

Step 4: Store Results

Add a Google Sheets node to log:

• Timestamp
• Original feedback
• Sentiment score
• Category
• Action taken

Step 5: Notify Team

Add a Slack node to send notifications with the analysis results.

Advanced: Add Memory

Use n8n's workflow memory to track feedback trends over time and generate weekly reports automatically.

Real-World Example

A SaaS company in Casablanca uses this exact workflow:

• Processes 500+ feedback entries per week
• Response time to negative feedback dropped from 48 hours to 2 hours
• Product team gets structured feature requests weekly
• Customer satisfaction score improved by 22%

Next Steps

Our AI Automation & Tools programme teaches n8n, Make, and custom automation building in depth.