Start here

New to AI agents? Start here

A plain-language guide to swapping an app or a chore for a bot, and picking a safe first project.

Quick quiz: find your first 3 recipes

What do you want to replace?AnythingBrowsingEmailFinanceMarketingNews & ReadingOperationsProductivityResearchSalesShoppingSupportHow comfortable are you with tech?New to this: Easy setups onlySome experience: Easy or MediumComfortable: anythingBudgetAny budgetFree or free-tier options onlyShow my recipes

Runs in your browser; nothing is sent or stored. Picks the highest-rated matches from our data.

What is an automation, and what is an AI agent?

An automation is a set of steps that runs on its own: “when an email arrives, copy it to a spreadsheet”. Tools like n8n and Make let you build these by connecting apps, often without code.

An AI agent adds an AI model (like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini) to make a judgment call inside those steps: summarize this, sort that email, draft a reply. Some agents can also click through websites for you, but those are the least reliable in our tracker.

Every recipe on AppToBot is a real setup someone shared publicly, with a link to the source so you can copy it.

How to pick your first recipe

1. Start with something you already do every day, like reading news or sorting email. Use Find a bot for my app to search by the app you use.
2. Pick Easy setup. Use the “Setup: Easy” filter on the recipes page.
3. Pick 4/5 or higher if you can. The leaderboard sorts by rating. Right now 2 recipes are both Easy and 4/5+.
4. Check the cost line. Many run on free or self-hosted tools plus small AI API fees; each recipe shows the cost its source reported, or “Not reported”.

What the ratings mean

Ratings (1–5) are our editorial read of each public source, not lab testing. Higher ratings mean stronger evidence that the setup keeps working: long-running use, a human review step, few known failure modes. Low ratings (1–2) mean the source showed it working but slow, flaky or needing hand-holding. “Not reported” means the source didn't give that number. Full methodology.

5 good first recipes

Picked automatically from our data: Easy setup, highest reliability first.

1. Support inbox triage with FAQ-grounded drafts: replaces Helpdesk first-pass triage. Rated 4/5, Easy setup. Cost: OpenAI API usage + n8n. Tool: n8n + Gmail + Google Sheets + OpenAI
2. AI RSS reader with a daily digest: replaces Checking news sites & social feeds. Rated 4/5, Easy setup. Cost: Free app; optional paid AI features. Tool: Folo (open source)
3. Reddit-to-Slack alerts in 5 minutes: replaces Custom-coded poller script. Rated 3/5, Easy setup. Cost: Free (self-hosted n8n). Tool: n8n
4. One 5-minute digest for 30+ newsletters: replaces Reading newsletters one by one. Rated 3/5, Easy setup. Cost: Free tier; Pro adds RSS/Substack. Tool: Readless
5. Free OCR receipt logger: replaces Manual expense spreadsheets. Rated 3/5, Easy setup. Cost: Free (OCR.space free key). Tool: n8n + OCR.space + Telegram + Google Sheets

Stay safe

• Keep a human in the loop. Have the bot draft or label, and you approve, until it has run correctly for a few weeks. Several of our highest-rated recipes do exactly this.
• Cap your AI spending. Set a monthly budget or usage limit in your AI provider's account so a loop or busy inbox can't run up a bill.
• Start with read-only access where you can, and avoid giving a bot payment or delete permissions on day one.
• Know where your data goes. Each recipe has a privacy note about what gets sent to an AI provider.
• Add a failure alert so you notice when it stops working.

Ready? Find a bot for my app or request one.