Build a Voice-Enabled AI Agent in n8n

Originally published at kjetilfuras.com When I started playing with AI Agents inside n8n, I wanted to go beyond just asking questions. I wanted a real assistant—something I could talk to (literally), that could respond, take action, and help automate everyday tasks like sending emails or booking meetings. The result was a self-hosted AI Agent that works entirely through Telegram. It understands both text and voice messages, and responds in kind. It’s also integrated with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Airtable. You can read up on Airtable here. This article walks you through how I built it—from trigger to tools to TTS response. What It Does Here’s what my AI Agent can do: Accept text or voice input via Telegram. Transcribe voice using OpenAI Whisper. Use GPT-4o-mini via the AI Agent node to reason over the prompt. Automatically use tools like Gmail, Google Calendar, or Airtable. Reply either as a message or an audio file using Kokoro TTS. Overview of the Stack n8n (self-hosted) AI Agent (