AI Knowledge Assistant Builder & Chat Agent (OpenAI & Google Drive)

Unlock Custom AI-Powered Q&A with this AI Agent

This n8n workflow empowers you to build and deploy a sophisticated AI Knowledge Assistant. It starts by fetching a document from your Google Drive (automatically converting Google Docs to PDF), uploads it to OpenAI to serve as a knowledge base, then creates a new OpenAI Assistant configured to use this document for retrieval. Finally, it enables you to chat with your newly created, knowledgeable AI assistant directly through n8n's chat interface. This AI Agent is perfect for solopreneurs, founders, and businesses looking to automate information retrieval and provide instant, accurate answers based on their own documents.

Key Features & Benefits

• Automated Assistant Creation: Streamlines the setup of an OpenAI Assistant tailored to your specific knowledge base.
• Google Drive Integration: Easily uses your existing documents (e.g., FAQs, product specs, policies) as a secure knowledge source. Automatically converts Google Docs to PDF for optimal compatibility with OpenAI.
• AI-Powered Knowledge Retrieval: Leverages OpenAI's retrieval capabilities to answer questions based only on the provided document content, ensuring accuracy and relevance.
• Customizable AI Behavior: Fine-tune the assistant's personality, instructions, and response style via the system prompt during creation.
• Interactive Chat Interface: Test and interact with your AI assistant directly within n8n using the built-in Chat Trigger and response mechanism.
• Foundation for Advanced Chatbots: Easily extendable to connect with customer-facing platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Slack (see workflow comments for tutorial links).
• Uses OpenAI Models: Built on powerful models like GPT-4-turbo-preview for intelligent conversation and precise information extraction.

• An n8n instance (Cloud or self-hosted).
• OpenAI API Key with access to Assistant-compatible models (e.g., gpt-4-turbo-preview) and sufficient credits.
• Google Drive credentials connected to n8n, with access to the document you intend to use as the knowledge base.
• The Google Document should be shareable and its File ID readily available.

1. Download the n8n workflow JSON file.
2. Import the workflow into your n8n instance.
3. Configure the 'Get File' (Google Drive) node:
   • Authenticate your Google Drive account if you haven't already.
   • In the File ID parameter, enter the ID of the Google Document you want to use. You can find this ID in the document's URL (e.g., for https://docs.google.com/document/d/THIS_IS_THE_ID/edit, THIS_IS_THE_ID is the File ID).
4. Configure the 'Upload File to OpenAI' node:
   • Select or create your OpenAI API credentials.
5. In the 'Create new Assistant' node:
   • Ensure your OpenAI API credentials are selected.
   • Customize the Assistant's Name, Description, and especially the Instructions (system prompt) to define its role and how it should use the provided document. The example instructions are a good starting point.
   • Crucially, update the File IDs parameter. The template has a placeholder ID (file-ADNwjiCiewifDJTroYTX1K96). You MUST replace this with an expression to dynamically use the ID from the 'Upload File to OpenAI' node. Click the gear icon next to File IDs, select 'Add Expression', and paste: {{ $('Upload File to OpenAI').item.json.id }}.
   • After configuring, you can run this node once (or the part of the workflow leading to it) to create the assistant. Note the ID of the created assistant from its output (it will look like asst_xxxxxxxxxxxx).
6. In the 'OpenAI Assistant' (chat) node:
   • Ensure your OpenAI API credentials are selected.
   • Update the Assistant ID parameter. The template has a placeholder ID (asst_Mb6Frb3v7R91kNuEEMXzBETs). You MUST replace this with the actual ID of the assistant you created in step 5. Paste the ID you noted. Alternatively, if running the whole flow, you can use an expression: {{ $('Create new Assistant').item.json.id }}.
7. Activate the workflow. You can test it by using the 'Chat Trigger'. Open the chat interface (usually accessible via the webhook URL of the Chat Trigger node) and send a message to interact with your new AI assistant.