Build Your First Make.com Scenario with AI (Beginner Guide, 2026)

If you’ve never built a Make.com scenario before, this is the post for you. We’ll build one together — a real, working AI automation — in about 30 minutes.

No code. No prior Make.com experience. The only requirements are:

• A Make.com account (free tier is fine)
• An Anthropic account with $5 credit added
• A Gmail account (or any email — I’ll use Gmail)
• About half an hour

What We’re Building

The scenario: every time I get an email with “booking” in the subject line, Claude reads the email, extracts the customer’s requested date, pickup, and drop-off, and adds a row to a Google Sheet. Zero human effort after setup.

This is a pattern you can reuse for dozens of things: support tickets, lead capture, event RSVPs, invoice processing. Once you understand this flow, you understand Make.com.

Step 1: Create Your Scenario

1. Log into make.com
2. Click Create a new scenario (top right)
3. You’ll see a big blue + in the middle of a blank canvas

That circle is a module. Everything in Make.com is modules connected together. One module does one job — read a Gmail message, send a webhook, call Claude, write to a sheet.

Step 2: Add the Trigger — Watch Emails

Click the + and search for Gmail. You’ll see many Gmail modules. We want Watch emails.

• Click Create a connection → sign in with Google → authorise Make to access Gmail
• For Folder, pick Inbox
• For Filter, pick All emails
• For Criteria, type booking in the subject field (so it only fires for booking emails)
• For Maximum number of results, set 1 (we want one email at a time while testing)

Click OK. The module turns green.

Quick test: Click Run once at the bottom left. Send yourself an email with “booking” in the subject. Wait a few seconds, then click Run once again. The module should show 1 = Operations and you can click it to see the email contents. Good — now it reads Gmail.

Step 3: Add Claude to Extract the Info

Right-click the Gmail module → Add module. Search for Anthropic Claude and pick Create a Prompt.

If you haven’t connected Claude yet, click Create a connection:

• Give it a name like Claude Production
• Paste your Anthropic API key (from console.anthropic.com → API Keys)
• Click Save

Now configure the module:

• Model: claude-haiku-4-5 (cheapest, fastest — plenty for this task)
• Max Tokens: 512
• System Prompt (click to expand — this is Claude’s instructions):

You are a booking extraction assistant.
Given a customer email, extract the booking details and return ONLY a valid JSON object with exactly these fields:

{
  "customer_name": "string",
  "requested_date": "YYYY-MM-DD",
  "pickup_location": "string",
  "dropoff_location": "string"
}

If any field is missing in the email, use the value "unknown". Return ONLY the JSON with no explanation, no code fences, no other text.

• Messages: click Add item → Role: user → for Content, click the field and pick {{1.Text content}} from the Gmail module output on the right.

That {{1.Text content}} is called a variable mapping — it means “take the email body from the Gmail module and put it here.” This is how modules pass data to each other in Make.

Click OK.

Step 4: Parse Claude’s JSON Output

Claude will return a string that looks like JSON, but Make.com treats it as plain text. We need to convert it so we can use the individual fields.

Right-click the Claude module → Add module. Search for JSON and pick Parse JSON.

• JSON string: map {{2.content[].text}} from Claude’s output (the actual answer lives at content[1].text)
• Data structure: click Add → name it Booking → click Generator. Paste this sample JSON:

{
  "customer_name": "Alice",
  "requested_date": "2026-05-15",
  "pickup_location": "CBD",
  "dropoff_location": "Airport"
}

Click Save. Make infers the data structure from the sample.

Click OK on the Parse JSON module.

Step 5: Write to Google Sheets

First, prepare your sheet:

1. Open sheets.google.com → create a new sheet called AI Bookings
2. In row 1, add headers: Date Received, Customer Name, Requested Date, Pickup, Dropoff

Back in Make.com:

Right-click the Parse JSON module → Add module. Search Google Sheets → Add a Row.

• Create a connection to your Google account
• Spreadsheet: pick AI Bookings
• Sheet Name: usually Sheet1
• Table contains headers: Yes
• Now map each column to the data from earlier modules:
• Date Received: {{1.Date}} (from Gmail)
• Customer Name: {{3.customer_name}} (from Parse JSON)
• Requested Date: {{3.requested_date}}
• Pickup: {{3.pickup_location}}
• Dropoff: {{3.dropoff_location}}

Click OK.

Step 6: Test End-to-End

Click Run once at the bottom.

Send yourself a new test email — something like:

Subject: Booking enquiry

Hi, my name is Alice and I’d like to book a transfer from Sydney CBD to the airport on 15 May 2026. Please confirm availability.

Wait 5–10 seconds, then watch the modules light up green one by one. Go check your Google Sheet — there should be a new row with Alice’s details extracted correctly.

If it worked: you just built an AI-powered email automation with zero code.

If something broke: click the module with the red X, read the error, and check the common errors below.

Step 7: Turn the Scenario On

Right now your scenario is a one-shot test. To make it live:

1. At the bottom left, click the ON/OFF toggle to ON
2. Set the schedule — default is every 15 minutes, which is fine. You can make it 1 minute for faster response, but it uses more operations (one per check, even if no email).

Now every ~15 minutes, Make.com checks your inbox, and any email with “booking” in the subject gets processed.

Common Errors

Gmail module returns nothing: You might have picked the wrong filter. Set Mark as read → No, and make sure the Criteria actually matches an unread email in your inbox.

Claude module fails with 401: API key is wrong. Go back to your Anthropic console, regenerate if needed, update the Make connection.

Parse JSON fails: Claude returned something that wasn’t valid JSON (maybe it added text before/after). Go back to the system prompt and make it stricter — emphasise “ONLY JSON, no other text.”

Google Sheets adds an empty row: One of your variable mappings is wrong. Click the module, look at each field’s value, confirm they’re pointing at the right source.

What to Build Next

Once this clicks, you can adapt the pattern to anything:

• Swap Gmail for a Typeform or Google Form → form submissions get AI-processed
• Swap Claude’s prompt → classify emails as spam/real/urgent
• Add a second Claude module → draft a reply before writing to sheets
• Add a Router module → send different email types to different sheets

Going Deeper

This scenario works, but real production workflows need:

• Error handling (what happens when Claude returns gibberish?)
• Cost control (set max tokens on every module)
• Human-in-the-loop (Telegram approval before actioning)
• State management (don’t process the same email twice)

All of that is in the Implementation Blueprint course ($29). If this post was enjoyable to build, the course is the natural next step.

If you want more starter scenarios like this one, the free Quick Start has a similar walkthrough plus a template you can clone.

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Got stuck? Email hello@theaigeneration.co — I reply personally.

Last updated: 20 April 2026.