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Every 10 minutes

Email yourself a company name and get a research brief back

Send yourself an email with "brief:" and a company name, and a short brief with background, recent news and talking points comes back in the same thread.

Runs
Every 10 minutes
Apps
Gmail, SerpApi
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
gmail.modify; SerpApi key

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 10 minutes, check for emails I send myself with a subject starting "brief:". Search the company on Google with SerpApi, summarise the facts and news with AI, and reply in the thread with a brief.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

An account manager at a marketing agency often learns about a meeting an hour before it starts: a new prospect, a client's parent company, a partner someone wants to introduce. They want five minutes of context before walking in, but between other calls there is no time to search, read and take notes.

With this automation they send themselves an email titled "brief: Northwind Traders" from their phone. Within ten minutes a reply lands in the same thread with what the company does, recent news and a few talking points, built from fresh Google web and news results through SerpApi.

What you get out of it

  • Prepared for every meeting

    A short brief before a call means you can ask better questions and mention recent events. Prospects notice when you have done your homework.

  • Works from any device

    All it takes is sending an email, which works from a phone, a laptop or a shared computer. There is no app to open or form to fill in.

  • Briefs kept in your inbox

    Each brief sits in a thread with the company's name as its subject. Searching your inbox finds it again before the next meeting.

  • Fresh information every time

    Briefs come from current search results, including the latest news. They do not rely on a stale company database.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 10 minutes, ClickRuntime checks your Gmail for new emails you sent yourself with a subject starting "brief:".

  2. For each one, it searches Google and Google News for the company named in the subject, through SerpApi.

  3. AI writes a short brief with background, recent news and talking points, and lists the sources.

  4. The brief is sent as a reply in the same thread, and the email is remembered so it is never answered twice.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google through your own Google app (a one-time, 10-minute setup), so it works with your own Gmail
  • Connect SerpApi

What you get

RunsEvery 10 minutes
Email yourself a company name and get a research brief backtoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · Re: brief: Northwind TradersNorthwind Traders is a specialty food importer in Portland with about 120 staff. Recent news: opened a Denver warehouse in August.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Gmail and SerpApi steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
research_brief_emailed_for_a_client_or_company.pyexample
import base64
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, ai, report_fetched

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    gmail = build("gmail", "v1", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False).users()
    done = set(state.get("done") or [])
    found = gmail.messages().list(userId="me", q='from:me to:me subject:"brief:" newer_than:1d').execute().get("messages", [])
    new = [m for m in found if m["id"] not in done]
    report_fetched(len(new))
    if not new:
        return {"briefs": 0}
    key = credentials.secret("SERPAPI_API_KEY")
    for m in new:
        msg = gmail.messages().get(userId="me", id=m["id"], format="metadata", metadataHeaders=["Subject", "From", "Message-ID"]).execute()
        h = {x["name"]: x["value"] for x in msg["payload"]["headers"]}
        company = h["Subject"].split(":", 1)[1].strip()
        web = http.get("https://serpapi.com/search", params={"engine": "google", "q": company, "api_key": key}).json().get("organic_results", [])[:5]
        news = http.get("https://serpapi.com/search", params={"engine": "google", "q": company, "tbm": "nws", "api_key": key}).json().get("news_results", [])[:5]
        lines = "\n".join(f"- {r['title']}: {r.get('snippet', '')} ({r['link']})" for r in web + news)
        brief = ai.generate(f"Company: {company}\n{lines}", system="Write a brief: what they do, size/location, recent news with dates, 3 talking points, sources.", max_output_tokens=600).text
        reply = MIMEText(brief)
        reply["to"], reply["subject"], reply["In-Reply-To"] = h["From"], "Re: " + h["Subject"], h["Message-ID"]
        gmail.messages().send(userId="me", body={"raw": base64.urlsafe_b64encode(reply.as_bytes()).decode(), "threadId": m["threadId"]}).execute()
        done.add(m["id"])
    state.set("done", list(done)[-500:])
    return {"briefs": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does it have to be my own address?
Yes, by default it only answers emails you send to yourself, so nobody else can trigger it. You can add colleagues' addresses if you want to share it.
What does a brief include?
What the company does, its size and location where known, recent news with dates, and three talking points. Sources are listed at the end.
How quickly does the reply arrive?
Within about ten minutes, since your inbox is checked on that schedule.
What permissions does it need?
gmail.modify; SerpApi key. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Email yourself a company name and get a research brief back” from your assistant

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