Creating AI Writers

AI Writers are the voices HeyNews uses when it drafts your newsletter. Each one learns from your past issues and writes in that style.

What is an AI Writer?

An AI Writer captures your writing style. When you generate a newsletter, HeyNews uses the writer you picked to match your tone, structure, and vocabulary.

Think of it like hiring a ghostwriter who's already read everything you've published.

Getting your first AI Writer

  1. Connect your newsletter platform or public archive
  2. HeyNews imports your past issues
  3. HeyNews starts building your AI Writer in the background
  4. Your AI Writer appears when it's ready to use

HeyNews builds the writer from your past issues, whether they come from beehiiv, Kit, or a connected newsletter archive. It can also learn from content you add through Sources.

Section structure and story counts

During setup, each AI Writer learns your newsletter's usual sections. Each section has a story count, which tells HeyNews how many stories to pull into that part of the draft. Adjust the count when you want a section to feel tighter or more detailed.

Setup process

HeyNews builds your writer in the background. It usually takes a few minutes. While that happens, the dashboard shows that your writer is still being prepared.

Once your AI Writer is ready, it appears on the AI Writers page and in the Compose writer menu. Writers that are still being prepared stay hidden until they are usable.

How many writers can I have?

Your subscription includes unlimited AI Writers. Create as many as you want for different newsletters, audiences, or writing styles.

Viewing writer details

Open any writer card to see:

  • Number of sources used for the voice profile
  • Sample drafts from setup
  • Voice profile details

Viewing and adding past issues

The AI Writers page shows a Past issues panel for your current newsletter. It lists the history sources your writer learned from, how many issues each source contributed, and where each source sits in the import and training cycle.

You'll see one of these states next to each source:

  • Needs review: support flagged the source because the domain or platform didn't match. They'll confirm it before importing.
  • Importing: the import is in progress.
  • Imported: the issues are in your training set.
  • Training queued: a new AI Writer is being prepared from those issues.
  • Trained: an AI Writer is using this source.
  • Rejected: the source belonged to a different newsletter, so it wasn't added.
  • Error: the import didn't finish. Reach out to support.
  • Inactive: the source was removed and no longer feeds future training.

If your newsletter has more history than HeyNews originally imported, choose Add more past issues. You can request a CSV export, a public archive URL, or another platform's history, such as beehiiv, Kit, Substack, Ghost, or Mailchimp.

Every source must belong to the same newsletter as your current publication. You'll confirm that before submitting the request and can add a short note if you switched platforms or domains. Support reviews the request and imports approved issues into the same training set, so your existing AI Writers keep working while we add more history. Once training finishes, new AI Writers are ready to use automatically.

Tips for better writers

  • Connect your newsletter platform first. If you have past broadcasts in beehiiv or Kit, or a public archive on Substack, Ghost, or Mailchimp, connect before creating a writer. The more examples the writer has to learn from, the better it'll match your voice.
  • Name writers by purpose. "Friday Product Update" is more useful than "Writer 1."
  • Create separate writers for different tones. A casual weekly roundup and a formal industry analysis deserve different voice profiles.
  • Add more past issues over time. If you find old issues from another platform, ask us to add them to the same newsletter. Your existing writers will improve once we import the new history.