Create an AI Daily Brief with Claude Cowork

Start your morning with one useful report: the emails that need a response, the meetings you need to prepare for, and the three tasks worth doing first.

This guide accompanies the video How to Create an AI Agent for Your Daily Brief in 2 Minutes. You will connect Gmail, Google Calendar and Notion, copy the exact prompt from the demo, and set up a recurring morning brief without writing code.

The two-minute walkthrough covers creating the task once your accounts are connected. Allow extra time for first-time sign-in, permissions and checking your first result.

What you will set up

A daily briefing task scheduled for 7:00 AM in your chosen time zone, with three sections:

• Important emails: who needs your attention and what you need to do.

• Today's meetings: start times and preparation worth doing beforehand.

• Top three priorities: a short proposed order based on deadlines and importance.

The brief is for review. The demo prompt tells Claude to read and summarise information without sending emails, changing events or editing tasks.

Before you start

You need a Claude account with Cowork access, the Gmail and Google Calendar accounts you use for work, and a Notion page or task database you can access. Cowork requires a paid Claude plan. Open Claude and select Cowork if that option is shown; the newer unified experience does not require that switch. See Claude's getting-started guide.

Choose the Notion task list you actually maintain. A list with task names, deadlines and completion status gives the brief better evidence than an unstructured collection of notes. If you have several workspaces or calendars, decide which ones belong in this report.

Set up your daily brief

1. Connect your three sources

Open Customize → Connectors in Claude. Find Gmail, Google Calendar and Notion, then follow each connector's sign-in flow. Check the account or workspace before granting access. Enable those connectors for the conversation from the + → Connectors menu. On a managed account, your organisation may need to enable a connector first. See Claude's connector setup instructions.

Before scheduling anything, ask Claude to find one recent email, one calendar event and one task from your chosen Notion list. Include the Notion page or database link in that request. Open the returned references and check that they belong to the intended accounts.

A connected account is not enough if Claude cannot find the particular list you mean. Resolve a wrong workspace or missing page now, while the test is small.

2. Create the scheduled task

In Cowork, open Scheduled → New task → Create with Claude. Paste the prompt below. If you use the newer unified Claude experience, you can ask for the recurring task directly in a conversation. Review the proposed task before saving it. These are the routes in Claude's scheduled-task instructions.

Exact prompt from the video

Create a scheduled daily briefing task that runs every morning at 7:00 AM in my local time zone.

Review my connected Gmail, Google Calendar, and Notion tasks.

Include:
1. Urgent or important emails that need my attention, with sender and action needed.
2. Today's meetings, their times, and any preparation required.
3. My top three priorities, based on deadlines and importance.

Keep the briefing concise, actionable, and easy to scan. Separate confirmed information from your recommendations. Include source references where possible.

Only read and summarize information. Do not send emails, modify calendar events, or edit Notion tasks. If a connected source is unavailable, say so rather than inventing information.

3. Tell Claude what matters to you

The original prompt is a starting point. Make it more useful by specifying what counts as urgent and which work belongs in the brief. Add these details to the task instructions before saving:

• Email scope: start with the past 24 hours; add a bounded lookback for unresolved messages if you need one.

• Important senders: name the clients, colleagues or projects whose messages deserve attention.

• Notion scope: provide the exact page or database link and the fields used for deadlines, owners and status.

• Priority order: for example, commitments due today, blockers affecting others, then important upcoming work. Exclude completed tasks.

• Meeting preparation: ask Claude to distinguish an agenda requirement from its own preparation suggestion.

Here is an optional add-on. Replace the bracketed fields, then append it to the original prompt. Choose a named time zone, such as Asia/Shanghai or America/New_York, instead of leaving “local” ambiguous.

Use these details for the daily brief:

Time zone: [YOUR TIME ZONE]
Notion task page or database: [PASTE THE LINK]
Relevant calendar or calendars: [CALENDAR NAMES]
Important senders or projects: [NAMES]

Review email received in the past 24 hours and unresolved messages from the past 7 days that need an action from me. Exclude newsletters and promotions unless they contain a relevant commitment.

For Notion, consider my incomplete tasks only. Rank commitments due today first, then blockers affecting other people, then important upcoming deadlines. Explain each proposed priority in one short sentence. Do not invent a deadline or fill three slots if there are fewer supported priorities.

Use my chosen time zone for today's date and all meeting times. Separate all-day events from timed meetings. Mark suggested preparation as a recommendation unless the source explicitly requests it.

Keep the brief under 400 words. Include source links where available and say which sources could not be checked. Keep the original read-only instructions.

4. Review the schedule and save

Check the task name, instructions and recurrence, then select Schedule. Open Scheduled to review the task and its runs. Claude's scheduling guide explains the available controls.

Before confirming, check four things:

1. The time is 7:00 AM, not PM.

2. The time zone matches the location you want the report to use.

3. The recurrence is daily, or weekdays if that suits your routine.

4. The saved instructions include your source scope and the read-only boundary.

Use a clear task name such as Morning Brief — Email, Meetings and Priorities so it is easy to find later.

5. Check the first brief

Use the task's on-demand run option to test it before relying on tomorrow's schedule. Each run produces its own Cowork session, where you can inspect the output. See how scheduled runs work.

Compare the result with the source apps:

• Open an email reference. Does it really require a response from you?

• Check the calendar. Are the date, meeting time and time zone correct?

• Open each proposed priority in Notion. Is it still incomplete, and is the deadline accurate?

• Check that recommendations are labelled, especially meeting preparation and task ranking.

• Look for a clear explanation if a source was unavailable.

If something is wrong, tighten the saved instructions and run another check. For example, replace “my tasks” with a database link and the exact owner/status fields. A useful brief should reduce decisions, not introduce new uncertainty.

What a useful brief looks like

Illustrative example only — these are invented items, not a real account result.

Important emails

• Alex, project lead: asks you to confirm the launch copy before noon. Action: review the draft and reply. In your real brief, open the source email before acting.

Today's meetings

• 10:00–10:30 — Launch review. The event description asks for the final copy. Suggested preparation: spend ten minutes checking unresolved comments beforehand.

Top three priorities

1. Approve launch copy. The email requests a decision by noon.

2. Finish the project handoff. The task is due today and blocks the next owner.

3. Prepare tomorrow's outline. The task is due tomorrow; doing it after today's commitments is a recommendation.

Your real brief should link to the supporting emails, events and tasks where possible. “Nothing urgent found in the checked sources” is a better result than inventing work to fill a section.

Common questions

Will it run when my laptop is closed?

New cloud scheduled tasks run remotely. Older tasks created before October 6 on Pro, Max or Ultra that ran locally remain local. Check an existing task before assuming it has moved to the cloud. See Claude's current scheduling guidance.

This guide uses connected services. Adding local files, a local connector or computer/browser actions introduces a dependency on the desktop app being open and connected. See Cowork across web, desktop and mobile.

Where will I read the report?

Review the run in Claude. The prompt does not request email delivery or publication to Notion. Start with that simple workflow and check the report there.

Claude cannot find my Notion tasks

Check the workspace, page access and the exact database link. Ask it to retrieve one known task first. If your list uses custom status names or has multiple owners, explain which values mean “incomplete” and which owner represents you.

The brief misses an email attachment

Gmail's connector provides attachment metadata rather than attachment contents. If preparation depends on an attachment, make the relevant material available through a supported route and ask Claude to inspect it explicitly. Do not treat a filename as evidence that the document was read. See Google Workspace connector limitations.

The report is too long or the priorities feel wrong

Reduce the lookback period, name important senders and limit the result to a few actionable items. Tell Claude which deadlines are firm and which projects can wait. Revise the saved task instructions so the next run uses the improved rules.

Does the prompt make my connectors read-only?

The prompt sets a behavioural boundary; it does not change account permissions. Gmail and Calendar connectors also support actions that change data. Review available tool permissions and block write actions where supported if this workflow only needs reading. See connector permissions and Google Workspace capabilities.

Your first-morning checklist

• Gmail, Google Calendar and the intended Notion task list can all be read.

• The task has a clear time, time zone and recurrence.

• Important senders and priority rules are saved in the task instructions.

• The first brief has been checked against its source records.

• Missing information is identified, and suggestions are separate from confirmed facts.

Start with this small report. After a few mornings, keep the sections that help you act and remove anything you routinely skip.