I Created an AI LinkedIn Bot to Automate Lead Generation

But if you're still doing manual prospecting, you're probably spending more time scrolling than selling.

I wanted a smarter way to find leads worth my time.

So I built a LinkedIn bot that automates the tedious part i.e. digging through Sales Navigator, pulling contact data, and qualifying leads, using AI.

Let me walk you through how to build your own LinkedIn bot, step by step.

What are LinkedIn bots?

These bots mimic what a human would do on the platform, just way faster and without needing coffee breaks.

Some stick to simple stuff like just collecting profiles... others go full genius mode and use AI to qualify leads based on your ideal customer profile (basically what we’re going to do).

But is it even legal?

Is it legal to use LinkedIn bots?

Does LinkedIn allow it? Nope.

Is it illegal? Also nope.

It’s fully legal as long as you don’t cross the line.

You can read my article on legality of LinkedIn data scraping, laws, and boundaries here:

Thousands of businesses use LinkedIn automation tools every day.

The trick is to stay ethical and respect the boundaries. Respect the limits, act like a human, and you’re good.

Use trusted tools like lobstr.io 🦀 with rate limits. To be extra safe, avoid running bots directly from your main account (unless you enjoy unnecessary risks).

Sales Nav seats or burner profiles are your besties here.

Now that the legal-ish stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about why you’d actually want a bot in the first place.

Why use LinkedIn bots for lead generation?

Like everyone else, I also started with good old manual prospecting. 🤡

pen Sales Navigator, apply filters, scroll through profiles, copy-paste into a sheet, then go hunt for their emails.

Repeat until your soul leaves your body.

Then I found LinkedIn bots.

Tools like Lobstr.io's Sales Navigator Leads Scraper made the process way faster.

It collects all the leads from a Sales Navigator search and enriches them with verified emails.

Huge upgrade!!

But still, it only exports the leads Sales Navigator shows me. 😞

It doesn’t study them.

It didn’t help me figure out which ones actually matched what I was looking for.

So, I decided to take it up a notch and build something smarter.

I call it a superbot.

Not just another LinkedIn bot... but an AI-powered automation system that collects, analyzes, and filters leads with actual intelligence.

Here’s what my superbot does:

1. Understands job titles, industries, and profile context like a human
2. Scores and prioritizes leads based on my ideal customer profile
3. Filters out the junk so I only get leads worth pursuing
4. Recommends outreach strategy based on lead type, seniority, and connection level
5. Organizes everything neatly in Google Sheets or sends it to my CRM

So yeah, it’s more than just scraping... It's smart prospecting on autopilot.

Now let’s move to the best part. Let me show you how to build your own version of this superbot, step by step.

How to build an AI LinkedIn bot for lead generation

So, here’s the fun part. Let me break down exactly what you need to build your own superbot.

We’re gonna treat this like a recipe.

The ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to build your superbot:

1. LinkedInSales Navigator – This is your starting point. You’ll run lead searches here and get access to filtered B2B profiles.
2. Lobstr.io – Scrapes all the leads from your Sales Navigator search and enriches them with verified emails.
3. OpenAI API – To build AI agents. This is the brain behind your bot. It reads, understands, and qualifies leads like a human (but way faster).
4. n8n – For workflow automation. It connects everything together and removes all the manual effort.

The recipe

It’s time to cook up your LinkedIn superbot. I broke the process into 2 simple parts.

Each part is its own little bot. Together, they handle everything from lead collection to AI-powered scoring and outreach angles.

Here’s how it’s structured:

1. Lead collector bot
2. Analyzer bot

Lead collector bot scrapes leads from your Sales Navigator search using Lobstr.io, enriches them with emails.

Analyzer bot is an AI agent that pulls those leads into OpenAI via n8n. It reads the profiles, scores them based on your ICP, and filters out the noise.

Now let’s cook! 🧑‍🍳

Part 1: LinkedIn bot for lead collection

Let’s start with lead collection. I have 3 tasks:

1. Finding leads
2. Collecting and enriching leads
3. Automating the process

Finding leads with Sales Navigator

The first step is obviously finding leads, and for that, I use LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

It offers a ton of filters to help you narrow down and find the best possible leads for your target audience.

I’ve already covered everything about Sales Navigator lead generation in detail here:

Collecting and enriching leads with Lobstr.io

Once I have my search ready, the next step is collecting those leads and enriching them with verified emails.

For that I use Lobstr.io. It is a cloud-based web scraping platform that comes with dozens of ready-made scrapers, including one specifically for Sales Navigator.

What makes it powerful?

1. Collects 30+ key data points from each Sales Nav lead
2. Pulls all leads from any Sales Navigator search
3. Enriches leads with verified work emails with less than 3% bounce rate
4. Lets you schedule automated and repeated data collection
5. Exports data to Google Sheets, Amazon S3, or CSV

The process is simple.

You sync your Sales Navigator account, paste your search URL, tweak your settings, and launch the scraper.

I have already explained the entire step-by-step process here:

But here is the thing.

Lobstr.io does automate the data collection and email discovery part, yet I still have to switch between Sales Navigator and Lobstr every time I want to collect leads.

But what if I could export all my leads with verified emails to a Google Sheet in a single click right after performing the search on Sales Navigator?

Automating the process with n8n

That is where automation with n8n came in.

The first step in our automation is to add a trigger to launch the automation.

There are multiple ways to set this up. In my first attempt I used a chat trigger.

I would copy the Sales Navigator search URL, open my hosted n8n chat trigger, and send it to the Sales Nav scraper via the Lobstr API.

I have demonstrated this in my previous article where I created a LinkedIn X-Ray search bot using n8n and Lobstr.io.

This worked but it was inefficient.

It was basically the same number of steps I would take to add a task manually in the Lobstr dashboard.

On top of that, chat triggers are not reliable. They often fail to trigger the workflow at all.

So I switched to a better solution: an n8n webhook trigger.

Webhooks are far more responsive, and the whole process becomes much faster.

The only question was, how do I send the URL as a POST request to my n8n webhook in the simplest way possible?

Setting up one-click URL sending to webhook

My goal was to reduce the manual steps to an absolute minimum. So I decided to go the Chrome extension route.

I started exploring the Chrome Web Store for extensions that could take the active tab’s URL and send it to my n8n webhook with a click.

There are plenty of them out there with similar features (you can explore them), but honestly, none of them impressed me.

And then I remembered. I have AI, my personal programmer.

So I asked it to build me a Chrome extension that, when clicked, instantly sends the URL from the active tab’s address bar to my n8n webhook.

And tada! after a few roasts, GPT gave me a really cool Chrome extension. (Yeah I didn’t waste time making it look cool).

The best thing is, it can store webhooks for later use and has many other useful features.

How to install it?

1. Download the Chrome extension
2. Unzip it
3. Go to Chrome extensions (chrome://extensions/)
4. Click load unpacked
5. Upload the unzipped folder

How to use it?

Right click on the chrome extension > go to Options > and add your webhook URL

Now let’s build the rest of the workflow.

Building the lead collection workflow

You’ll need Lobstr.io’s API key for the rest of the workflow.

It’s free, well-documented, and we’ve added examples of how to use it for each scraper in Lobstr.io’s catalog.

For notifications and later interactions with this bot and the AI agent, you can use Telegram, Discord, Slack, or any other app of your choice.

Since I love Discord, in my workflow I’ve used it for all notifications and Human In The Loop events.

Now the workflow…

Actually… I feel you. Time is precious and you’re here for the bot not for a detailed n8n masterclass.

So here’s the first workflow!!!

How to use it?

It’s easy:

1. Download the JSON file from the above button
2. Create a new workflow in n8n and import this file to it
3. Change the credentials and Squid ID
4. Save and Activate the workflow

Save it somewhere, we’ll be using it later.

Now simply add this Squid ID where it’s required in the n8n workflow. You need to change the Squid ID in:

1. addTasks HTTP request node
2. startRun node
3. emptySquid node

How it works?

Once active, you don’t need to do anything inside n8n now.

Whenever you want to collect leads from Sales Navigator, just click the extension and send the URL to webhook.

Once done, you’ll receive a message on your preferred app (Discord in my case) like this.

Why Google Sheets?

I configured Google Sheets as a delivery method in the Lobstr.io dashboard.

But this data is exactly the same I saw in Sales Navigator.

How do I score leads?

For that, let’s build the 2nd bot of our automation i.e. the analyzer bot.

Part 2: LinkedIn bot for lead qualification and scoring

Now that the Lead Collector Bot is bringing in fresh leads with verified emails, it’s time to separate the gold from the junk.

This second bot, uses AI to read each lead’s details, score them, and tell you which ones are actually worth chasing.

What you need

You’ll need OpenAI’s API so the bot can think like a human and score your leads.

How to use this bot

Download the JSON file for this bot and import it into the same n8n setup you used for the Lead Collector Bot.

Once it’s in, update the credentials Google Sheets and OpenAI chat model nodes.

This bot also uses a different webhook.

Now whenever a run completes successfully, the bot will automatically analyze the leads without any manual interference.

But, wait… What does the 2nd Sheet added as a tool in the AI agent do?

Well, the AI agent doesn’t score the leads based on guesswork. You’ll have to provide it with your ICP or any set criteria to choose the best leads.

Since I’ve stored my criteria/ICP in a Google Sheet, I asked it to read the Sheet.

You can simply create a Sheet, add your criteria and the AI agent will score the leads based on that criteria.

You can also choose Notion or any other app or even ask it to read from a text or md file.

And that’s it.

Once AI analysis is done, you’ll receive the updated leads data in your Discord in the form of a CSV file.

You can download it, view it in Excel or Google Sheets.

That’s a wrap for building the Collector and Analyzer bots. With these two running, you’ll have a steady stream of fresh, qualified leads ready to go.

How can I make this LinkedIn bot even better?

The Collector and Analyzer bots work great but they aren’t perfect. You can further improve them to give you the best results.

1. Optimize AI scoring for your ICP
2. Integrate your CRM or outreach tool
3. Multi-source lead collection

Optimize AI scoring for your ICP

Instead of using my scoring prompt, you can fine-tune it to match your Ideal Customer Profile.

Give it your ICP, the data points collected by Lobstr.io, and the system and user prompts from the AI Agent.

Add any specific improvements you want and it will craft the prompt that delivers the scoring you are looking for.

Integrate your CRM or outreach tool

n8n supports multiple CRMs and outreach tools.

Instead of sending everything to Google Sheets, you can push qualified leads straight into your CRM or send them directly to your outreach tool for automated follow-up.

Multi-source lead collection

Sales Navigator is powerful, but you can also combine it with other sources for a larger and more diverse lead list.

Check out our scraper catalog to find more platforms relevant to your lead generation campaign.

Now before wrapping up, let me answer some FAQs you might have.

FAQs

Are LinkedIn bots safe to use for automating connections and messaging?

LinkedIn bots can help with connection requests, follow-up messages, and even automated messaging, but safety depends on how you use them.

Keep your activity levels human-like and avoid spammy behavior. If you push too hard, LinkedIn’s algorithms might restrict your account.

Are bots safe to use for LinkedIn profile growth?

Yes, but only if you focus on quality over quantity. The goal should be building a healthy LinkedIn network, not just blasting LinkedIn connection requests.

Use personalized messages and target the right linkedin users instead of random profiles.

Can I use Meet Alfred with n8n?

I did not find any API or direct integration with n8n for Meet Alfred.

It does support webhooks, so you could still connect it indirectly. You can confirm the exact integration options with their support team. (It does offer Zapier integration though)

Can I use Phantombuster with n8n?

Yes. Phantombuster offers a direct integration with n8n.

You can wire it up inside a workflow and use it to run linkedin lead generation campaigns, collect user profiles, and feed the results into your automation.

What are the best templates for LinkedIn outreach?

The best outreach templates are short, personal, and relevant to the recipient. Avoid copy-paste linkedin messages that look spammy.

Instead, reference their linkedin posts, endorsements, LinkedIn connection, or recent activity to start a genuine conversation.

I’ve actually written two detailed tutorials you can use:

How can recruiters benefit from LinkedIn automation?

Recruiters can use LinkedIn automation to speed up linkedin search, profile/resume analysis, send linkedin messages, and manage follow-up messages.

With the right functionality, they can focus more on interviews and less on manual profile browsing.

Conclusion

That’s a wrap on my journey of creating a super smart LinkedIn bot to automate lead generation.