Top 10 AI automation articles from Zapier's blog in 2025 (part 2)

To download the articles, I first looked for the pages listing those articles. I inspected the page

https://zapier.com/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration/

using the DevTools. There, I found the information I wanted inside a JSON object with the ID __NEXT_DATA__ defined in a <script> tag.

In the console, I ran the following code to get the list of pagination URLs:

const nextDataElt = document.getElementById("__NEXT_DATA__");
const nextData = JSON.parse(nextDataElt.textContent);

nextData.props.pageProps.paginationUrls
// [
//   "/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration",
//   "/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration/2",
//   "/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration/3",
//   "/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration/4",
//   ...
//   "/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration/35"
// ]

Looking closer at the JSON object, I saw that the articles on each page are listed at props.pageProps.articlesMostRecent. Here's an example of that section in JSON format:

[
  {
    "topicId": "1H263FsCuJ3XaJKmEzQd8v",
    "title": "4 ways to automate your bookmark manager",
    "slug": "automate-bookmark-manager",
    "categoryAssemblyTitle": "Automation inspiration",
    "categoryAssemblyHref": "/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration",
    "image": {
      "alt": "",
      "maxWidth": 0,
      "title": "automate-bookmark-manager-00-hero",
      "url": "https://images.ctfassets.net/lzny33ho1g45/2m3MT9v0XfDAzFKdh0Dxrq/d63dd16b01bb673f15e76873a100fbe3/automate-bookmark-manager-00-hero.jpg"
    },
    "readTimeHandcoded": 0,
    "readTimeComputed": 197,
    "editorialLastPublishedDateComputed": "2025-07-22T05:00:00.000Z",
    "editorialOriginalPublishDate": "2025-01-17T00:00:00.000-08:00",
    "shortDescription": "Don't manually sort through saved items. Instead, automatically sync bookmarks between apps, convert them into tasks, and even generate curated RSS feeds for your audience. Here's how.",
    "author": {
      "name": "Michael Toth",
      "email": "..."
    },
    "timeToRead": 197,
    "description": "Don't manually sort through saved items. Instead, automatically sync bookmarks between apps, convert them into tasks, and even generate curated RSS feeds for your audience. Here's how."
  },
  {
    "topicId": "1DyKa0v0vW8eebqJd6yDgx",
    "title": "5 ways to automate Chatbase with Zapier",
    "slug": "automate-chatbase",
    "categoryAssemblyTitle": "Automation inspiration",
    "categoryAssemblyHref": "/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration",
    "image": {
      "alt": "",
      "maxWidth": 0,
      "title": "automate-chatbase-hero-00",
      "url": "https://images.ctfassets.net/lzny33ho1g45/2u09rJVQpb9VuHv0Tpuu87/df8d4e01cc06473292389d170fad826b/Group_14838.jpg"
    },
    "readTimeHandcoded": 0,
    "readTimeComputed": 249,
    "editorialLastPublishedDateComputed": "2025-07-21T07:00:00.000Z",
    "editorialOriginalPublishDate": "2023-10-10T00:00:00.000-07:00",
    "shortDescription": "With Chatbase and Zapier, you can use automated workflows—called Zaps—to streamline everything from support tickets to onboarding. ",
    "author": {
      "name": "Elena Alston",
      "email": "..."
    },
    "timeToRead": 249,
    "description": "With Chatbase and Zapier, you can use automated workflows—called Zaps—to streamline everything from support tickets to onboarding. "
  },
  ...
]

So, I decided to retrieve that article metadata for each of the 35 pages listed in the paginationUrls key. I stored the combined data in a variable called articles and saved it to the file data/articles.json.

To do all this, I used the requests package for the HTTP requests, beautifulsoup4 to grab the __NEXT_DATA__ string, and json to parse it into Python:

# zapier_automation_inspiration.py

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import os
import logging
import json

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
logger = logging.getLogger("zapier-inspiration")

# 1. List of Articles

base_url = "https://zapier.com"
list_url = base_url + "/blog/all-articles/automation-inspiration/"
resp = requests.get(list_url)
soup = BeautifulSoup(resp.text, "html.parser")
next_data_tag = soup.find("script", id="__NEXT_DATA__")

if next_data_tag:
    next_data = json.loads(next_data_tag.string)
    pagination_urls = data.get("props", {}).get("pageProps", {}).get("paginationUrls")
else:
    logger.error(f'No tag with id "__NEXT_DATA__" found in {list_url}.')

articles = []

for p in pagination_urls:
    articles_url = base_url + p
    resp = requests.get(articles_url)
    soup = BeautifulSoup(resp.text, "html.parser")
    next_data_tag = soup.find("script", id="__NEXT_DATA__")
    if next_data_tag:
        next_data = json.loads(next_data_tag.string)
        if (articles_most_recent := next_data.get("props", {}).get("pageProps", {}).get("articlesMostRecent")):
            articles.extend(articles_most_recent)
            logger.info(f"{len(articles_most_recent)} articles found in {articles_url}.")
        else:
            logger.info(f"No articles found in {articles_url}.")

os.mkdir("data")
with open("data/articles.json", "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    json.dump(articles, f, ensure_ascii=False, indent=2)

logger.info(f"{len(articles)} articles found.")
logger.info(f"The list of articles has been saved in data/articles.json file.")

To run this, use the following commands:

$ uv init
$ uv add requests beautifulsoup4
$ uv run zapier_automation_inspiration.py

Next, for each article:

1. I retrieved the article page using the slug key from the article dictionary.

2. I extracted the HTML string inside the unique <article> tag with beautifulsoup4. This gives the main content.

3. I converted the article content into markdown using markdownify, and removed some extra, noisy lines.

4. I took some article metadata (including the title) from the article dictionary and added that as a header before the content.

5. Finally, I saved each article in the file data/articles/<slug>.md.

I also added time.sleep(2) between requests to the Zapier server. This prevented SSL errors like this one, which I kept getting if I didn't add a pause:

requests.exceptions.SSLError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='zapier.com', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /blog/automate-activecampaign-with-zapier/ (Caused by SSLError(SSLEOFError(8, '[SSL: UNEXPECTED_EOF_WHILE_READING] EOF occurred in violation of protocol (_ssl.c:1000)')))

I encountered only two errors, with the articles "5 ways to automate X (formerly known as Twitter)" and "How to connect Facebook and Twitter for seamless social posting":

ERROR:zapier-inspiration:Failed to fetch 'https://zapier.com/blog/automate-twitter/':  no <article> tag found.
ERROR:zapier-inspiration:Failed to fetch 'https://zapier.com/blog/connect-facebook-and-twitter-for-seamless-social-posting/':  no <article> tag found.

These articles no longer exist due to changes in the X API and are now redirected to https://zapier.com/l/twitter-integration-faq.

# zapier_automation_inspiration.py

# ...
from markdownify import markdownify as md
import re
from datetime import datetime
import time
# ...
# 1. List of Articles
# ...
# 2. Download articles and convert to Markdown format

os.makedirs("data/articles/", exist_ok=True)

articles = [a for a in articles if isinstance(a, dict) and "slug" in a]

for article in articles:
    slug = article.get("slug")
    article_url = f"{base_url}/blog/{slug}/"

    logger.info(f"Processing '{article_url}'.")

    try:
        resp = requests.get(article_url)
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
        logger.error(f"Failed to fetch {article_url}: {e}")
        continue
    time.sleep(2)

    soup = BeautifulSoup(resp.text, "html.parser")
    article_tag = soup.find("article")

    if article_tag:
        # Always use #-style Markdown headings
        article_md = md(str(article_tag), heading_style="atx")
        # Remove lines like these:
        # [Try it](/webintent/create-zap?template=1379702)
        # * ![RSS by Zapier logo](https://zapier-images.imgix.net/storage/services/aa4f3d27fda1e4ca2e1a64c3e62d3b7c.png?auto=format&fit=crop&h=30&ixlib=react-9.8.1&q=50&w=30)
        article_md = "\n".join(line for line in article_md.splitlines() if not line.startswith("* ![") and not line.startswith("[Try"))
        # Remove consecutive line breaks
        article_md = re.sub(r"\n\s*\n+", "\n\n", article_md)
    else:
        article_md = ""

    title = article.get("title", slug)
    author = article.get("author", {}).get("name", "")
    email = article.get("author", {}).get("email", "")
    last_updated = datetime.fromisoformat(article.get("editorialLastPublishedDateComputed"))
    time_to_read = str(int(article.get("timeToRead", 0) / 60))
    description = article.get("description", "")

    article_md = f"""# {title}

* Link: {article_url}
* Author: {author}
* Email: {email}
* Last updated: {last_updated.strftime('%B %d, %Y')}
* Time to read: {time_to_read} min
* Description: {description}

{article_md}"""

    filename = f"data/articles/{slug}.md"
    with open(filename, "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
        f.write(article_md)

    if article_tag:
        logger.info(f"Proccesing '{article_url}' done.  See {filename}.")
    else:
        logger.error(f"Failed to fetch '{article_url}':  no <article> tag found.")

For this step, the script requires markdownify, which you can install like this:

$ uv add markdownify

Here's a sample from the file data/articles/why-pairing-ai-with-automation-will-change-how-you-work.md:

# Why pairing AI with automation will change how you work

* Link: https://zapier.com/blog/why-pairing-ai-with-automation-will-change-how-you-work/
* Author: Elena Alston
* Email: ...
* Last updated: January 15, 2025
* Time to read: 5 min
* Description: Connecting your AI tools to the rest of your tech stack doesn't just knock out the tasks that eat into your day. It also helps you scale your business, work faster, and focus on the work that actually has an impact.

If you've experimented at all with AI, you'll know it's a handy assistant when it comes to certain tasks, like writing code or qualifying leads. But when you pair AI with automation—that's when you'll start seeing the full benefits across your entire operations.

Picture this: You attend a call with a potential prospect who shows interest in your product. After you hang up, AI sifts through the conversation, pulling out key details like pain points and specific needs. The information is then automatically logged in your CRM, and a personalized outreach email is drafted based on the lead's preferences and behavior. Finally, your sales team in Slack receives a notification, so the right team member can trigger the outreach.

These aren't the efforts of a hyper-organized, overly caffeinated employee, but AI and automation combined.

Connecting your AI tools to the rest of your tech stack (be that with [chatbots](https://zapier.com/ai/chatbot), [AI-powered agents](https://zapier.com/agents), or [workflows](https://zapier.com/apps/categories/artificial-intelligence)) is a game-changer. It doesn't just knock out the tasks that eat into your day (and soul). It's the smartest way to scale your impact and bring your business true value. Here's how.

AI gives you automation superpowers. And Zapier helps you put those powers to use. We make it easy to turn your ideas into workflows so computers can do more work for you. [Sign up for AI beta features now.](https://zapier.com/ai)

### Table of contents

* [It keeps you (and your apps) from working in a silo](#silo)
* [It helps bring your automation ideas to life](#life)
* [It helps you scale your business and impact—faster](#impact)
* [It helps you focus on the work that matters](#focus)

## It keeps you (and your apps) from working in a silo
...
## It helps bring your automation ideas to life
...
## It helps you scale your business and impact—faster
...
## **It helps you focus on the work that matters**
...
## Power your business with AI and automation
...
*This article was originally published in September 2023. It was most recently updated in January 2025.*

That's all I have for today! Talk to you soon ;)