How to Repurpose Instagram Reels into AI-Rewritten Scripts with n8n

You probably already follow a dozen Instagram accounts in your niche. Every day they post Reels about tools, tips, and trends your audience would love. But watching each video, taking notes, and rewriting the content in your own voice takes hours you don’t have. What if you could feed n8n a list of Instagram handles and wake up to a spreadsheet full of AI-rewritten scripts ready to record?

That’s exactly what this workflow does. It pulls the latest Reel from each account on your list, transcribes the audio, uses GPT-4O to analyze and filter the content, researches the tools mentioned via Perplexity AI, and writes a brand-new script tailored to your audience. The whole thing runs in minutes, not hours.

Prefer to skip the setup? Grab the ready-made template → and be up and running in under 10 minutes.

What You’ll Build

1. Add Instagram handles to a Google Sheet (e.g., mkbhd, garyvee, levelsio).
2. Click “Execute” in n8n. The workflow fetches each account’s latest Reel, downloads the video, and transcribes the audio with OpenAI Whisper.
3. GPT-4O analyzes each transcript to decide if it covers a tool or technology worth repurposing, then generates step-by-step usage instructions and content improvement suggestions.
4. Perplexity AI researches each tool for unique facts your competitors probably missed.
5. GPT-4O writes a polished, original script (~100 words) in your chosen tone, complete with a call-to-action, and saves everything to your output sheet.

How It Works — The Big Picture

The workflow is a single linear pipeline that loops through each Instagram profile on your list. Here’s the full flow:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  INSTAGRAM CONTENT REPURPOSING PIPELINE                                    │
│                                                                            │
│  [Manual Trigger] → [Google Sheets] → [Loop] → [Scrape Instagram]       │
│       → [Extract URLs] → [Download Video] → [Whisper Transcribe]         │
│       → [GPT-4O Analyze] → [Perplexity Research] → [GPT-4O Rewrite]     │
│       → [Save to Sheets] → [Loop Back]                                   │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
  

What You’ll Need

• n8n (Cloud or self-hosted, version 1.0+)
• OpenAI API key — for GPT-4O text generation and Whisper audio transcription
• Perplexity AI API key — for web research on identified tools
• Scrape Creators API key — for fetching Instagram post data (paid service)
• Google account — for Google Sheets OAuth2 access
• A Google Sheet with a “profiles” tab containing an “Instagram Handles” column

Estimated build time: 35–50 minutes from scratch, or under 10 minutes with the template.

Part 1 — Loading Instagram Profiles

1 Manual Trigger

The workflow starts with a manual trigger, meaning you click “Execute Workflow” in n8n to kick it off. This gives you full control over when the content research runs. If you’d prefer an automated schedule, you can swap this for a Schedule Trigger node set to run daily or weekly.

2 Read Instagram Profiles (Google Sheets)

This node connects to your Google Sheet and reads every row from the “profiles” tab. Each row should have one Instagram handle (without the @ symbol) in a column called Instagram Handles.

[
  { "Instagram Handles": "mkbhd" },
  { "Instagram Handles": "garyvee" },
  { "Instagram Handles": "levelsio" }
]

3 Loop Over Items

The Split In Batches node processes one Instagram handle at a time. After each profile is fully processed (transcribed, analyzed, rewritten, and saved), the loop returns here to grab the next one. This prevents API overload and makes debugging easier.

Part 2 — Fetching and Processing Video

4 Fetch Latest Instagram Post (HTTP Request)

This node calls the Scrape Creators API to retrieve the most recent post from the current Instagram handle. It sends a GET request with the handle and a limit of 1, returning the post’s metadata including video URLs, caption, engagement counts, and timestamps.

{
  "items": [{
    "id": "3456789012345678901",
    "caption": { "text": "This AI tool is completely free..." },
    "video_versions": [
      { "url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/v/..." }
    ],
    "like_count": 12453,
    "comment_count": 892,
    "play_count": 245000
  }]
}

5 Extract Video URLs (Set Node)

Pulls out the key fields we need from the Instagram API response: the high-resolution video URL, a low-res fallback, the caption text, and the post ID. This keeps the data clean for downstream nodes.

6 Download Video (HTTP Request)

Takes the video URL from the previous step and downloads the actual MP4 file from Instagram’s CDN. The binary data is passed directly to the next node for transcription. Error handling is set to continue even if the download fails (some posts may be images, not videos).

7 Transcribe Video (OpenAI Whisper)

Sends the downloaded video file to OpenAI’s Whisper model for speech-to-text transcription. Whisper handles multiple languages and accents well, so it works even with international content creators. The output is a plain text transcript of everything said in the Reel.

{
  "text": "Hey there. So I just wanted to let you know about an AI text-to-speech generator that has recently become available. It doesn't cost anything at all. It has a lot of voices and the best part is you don't need to sign up..."
}

Part 3 — AI Content Analysis and Script Rewriting

8 Analyze Content with GPT-4O

This is where the intelligence happens. GPT-4O receives the transcript and performs three tasks in one call: it decides whether the content is about a tool, technology, or AI topic worth repurposing (verdict: true/false). If relevant, it identifies the specific tools mentioned, writes step-by-step usage instructions, and suggests how to make the content more appealing to your audience.

{
  "verdict": "true",
  "tools": ["Speechma"],
  "stepByStep": "1. Visit speechma.com\n2. Enter your text...",
  "suggestion": "Create a comparison test against ElevenLabs...",
  "searchPrompt": "Speechma, the AI text-to-speech tool"
}

9 Research Tools via Perplexity (HTTP Request)

Uses the searchPrompt from the previous step to query Perplexity AI’s Sonar Pro model. The prompt asks for three interesting, peculiar facts about the tool. This gives your rewritten script unique angles that the original creator didn’t cover, making your content genuinely original rather than a simple rehash.

10 Write Repurposed Script (GPT-4O)

The final AI step. GPT-4O receives everything gathered so far: the tool names, the original rough transcript, the Perplexity research, the step-by-step guide, and the content improvement suggestions. It produces a polished ~100-word script in a casual, direct tone with a call-to-action ending.

The prompt includes a one-shot example so GPT-4O understands the exact format and tone you want. You can customize this example in the node parameters to match your brand voice.

{
  "script": "Hey\u2014there's a completely new AI text to speech generator that's just as good as ElevenLabs, but FREE.\nIt allows you to choose from over 400 voices, it supports 60 languages, and it's all completely unlimited with no signup required.\nJust head over to this website\nPaste your text\nChoose one of the voices\nAnd click generate\nThat's it! Your AI speech is now ready to use.\nYou can use this voice for YouTube videos, TikToks, or whatever you like.\nSo go try it yourself.\nJust Comment \"speech\" and I'll share the link with you."
}

Part 4 — Saving Results

11 Save Results to Google Sheets

Writes all the collected data to your output sheet in one row per profile. The row includes the post ID, timestamp, caption, video URL, engagement metrics (likes, comments, views), video duration, the original transcript, and the rewritten script. The node uses “append or update” mode, matching on post ID so re-running the workflow won’t create duplicates.

After saving, execution loops back to Step 3 to process the next Instagram profile on your list.

The Data Structure

The workflow uses two tabs in the same Google Sheet. Here’s the schema for the output tab where results are saved:

Full System Flow

  Google Sheet ("profiles" tab)
       │
       ▼
  ┌──── LOOP (per profile) ───────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │  Scrape Creators API → Download MP4 → Whisper (transcript)    │
  │       │                                                         │
  │       ▼                                                         │
  │  GPT-4O Analyze → Perplexity Research → GPT-4O Rewrite         │
  │       │                                                         │
  │       ▼                                                         │
  │  Save to Google Sheet ("output" tab)                             │
  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
  

Testing Your Workflow

1. Add 2–3 Instagram handles to your “profiles” sheet. Pick accounts that post Reels about tools or tech (e.g., mkbhd, mattvidpro).
2. Click Execute Workflow in n8n and watch the execution log.
3. After it finishes, open your output Google Sheet. You should see one row per profile with all fields populated.
4. Read the “rewritten Script” column. It should contain an original, ~100-word script in a casual tone with a CTA at the end.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s Next?

• Add a Telegram or Slack notification after the script is written so you get an instant alert with the rewritten content.
• Build a TikTok version using a TikTok scraping API instead of Scrape Creators to repurpose short-form video from multiple platforms.
• Add an AI image generation step (DALL-E or Midjourney via API) to auto-create thumbnail images alongside each script.
• Connect to a content calendar (Notion, Airtable, or Trello) to automatically schedule the rewritten scripts for production.