AI Writers help HeyNews draft your newsletter in your voice. You can set one up from past issues, or start without them through Newsletter Format when that option is available in your account.
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 as a ghostwriter who knows the voice and structure you want.
HeyNews builds the writer from your past issues, whether they come from beehiiv, Kit, or a connected newsletter archive. Those past issues can also help HeyNews find recurring sources from links you already shared. It can also learn from content you add through Sources.
If Newsletter Format setup is available in your account, you can start with your audience, topic, and publishing plans instead of importing past issues. HeyNews saves each intake step, so you can return and finish later.
Each Format Run costs $19 and includes one Format Re-run. First review and approve the proposed Sources, Sections, and Style Rules. For eligible new customers, that approval starts the selected plan's 14-day trial. Existing paid customers keep their subscription.
HeyNews then creates a Demo Issue in Compose. Edit it and approve it to finish setting up your Publication and AI Writer. Your first trial uses the empty Publication created at signup. Additional Formats need room for another Publication on your plan. A Format Re-run replaces the proposal, so save any changes you want to keep separately. Before creating further Drafts or Draft Automation, select a ready Sending Connection in Connections & imports. For beehiiv, choose its destination Publication and Use for new provider drafts. A ready Kit connection also meets this setup requirement, but Drafts must be copied into Kit. A public archive import alone does not complete this step.
The styling preview shows the proposed colors and fonts inside HeyNews. Review the final appearance in beehiiv too, because your sending platform controls the styling readers receive.
During setup, each AI Writer learns your newsletter's usual sections. Each section has a story count, which sets the most Stories HeyNews should use in that part of the draft. If the selected Stories do not support a section, the AI Writer leaves it out instead of filling it with unrelated material.
An AI Writer can also have a section with a story count of 0, such as an editor's note or a closing thought. It writes that section in your voice, without a Story link. It can refer to Stories covered elsewhere in the issue by name.
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 under Voice & past issues > AI Writers and in the Compose writer menu. Writers that are still being prepared stay hidden until they are usable.
Occasionally Voice Training stops before the writer is finished. When that happens the dashboard says Voice Training Needs Attention rather than leaving you waiting on a build that will not arrive. We are alerted at the same time. You do not need to start anything over, and if you do not hear from us, contact support.
HeyNews sets up the AI Writers your newsletter needs from your past issues, up to 7 per Publication. Existing writers stay available if your Publication already has more than 7.
Open a writer from the list and it gets a page of its own, with its own web address you can bookmark or share with a teammate who already has access to the Publication. All AI Writers takes you back to the list. On the writer's page you'll see:
The Voice Profile is read-only because it comes from Voice Training. Use Style Rules for preferences you want to set yourself, such as ending the intro with a call to action or keeping one section within a certain length. Each rule can apply to the whole issue or to a section you name.
When the AI Writer creates a draft, it also refers to a few past issues. If you added more than one source of past issues, HeyNews can include an older example from a source that recent issues would otherwise hide. These examples help it preserve details such as humour, paragraph rhythm, emoji habits, and sign-offs without copying old sentences or links.
You can add, edit, or remove up to 50 Style Rules on each AI Writer. Changes apply to the next draft you create, so you do not need to retrain the writer. Publication Viewers can read the rules but cannot change them. HeyNews manages the rules on shared AI Writers, so those are also read-only.
AI Writers belong to the Publication, not to whoever set them up. If you can edit content on a Publication, you can use any ready, active writer on it. Compose with one, point a scheduled newsletter at it, edit its Style Rules and Reusable Links. It makes no difference which of you ran Voice Training.
If you repeat Voice Training for the same writer, HeyNews keeps its Style Rules and Reusable Links when there is one clear match. When Voice Training creates a separate sibling writer, its settings start independently, and you copy across what you want.
Open a writer and you will see two buttons above its settings:
Either way, you pick the other writer, select the Style Rules and Reusable Links you want, and confirm. Both pickers show how many of each a writer already has, so similarly named writers are easy to tell apart. You can choose any Publication you can edit, so this works between your Publications, not only inside one.
Copying always adds. Nothing on the receiving writer is replaced, and the writer you copied from is left alone. If the receiving writer already has one of the items you picked, HeyNews names it before you confirm and skips it rather than adding a second copy. If the selection will not fit within the limits, HeyNews copies nothing and says so, so you can make room or pick fewer items instead of guessing what got left behind.
Selecting pauses editing on both lists until you finish or cancel. That is on purpose. It means an item cannot be changed or deleted between the moment you pick it and the moment it is copied. If either writer changes while you are choosing, HeyNews stops the copy and asks you to look again.
You can copy out of a shared AI Writer or one in a Publication you can only read, since copying only reads the original. You cannot copy into either, and archived writers are out of this entirely, in both directions.
If someone else saves changes while you are editing, HeyNews keeps your draft open and shows the latest saved rules. Review both versions, then save again. When you repeat the same Draft Brief direction, use Open Style Rules below the brief to make it a lasting preference.
Drafts can only link to the stories you selected. That protection keeps AI Writers from inventing links, but it also blocks links you want in every issue, like a sign-off that points to your LinkedIn profile or your subscribe page.
Reusable Links is where you approve those standing links. Add up to 20 on each AI Writer, each with a web address and optional link text. The writer can then use them in drafts starting with the next one, without new Voice Training. Give a link a clear name, such as "Subscribe page," when you want to refer to it in a Draft Brief. The name helps your AI Writer find the saved link; the web address is still what HeyNews approves. The list belongs to the current AI Writer. If Voice Training creates a sibling, you can leave its settings independent or copy across the links you want.
A few things to know:
https://example.com still counts when a draft renders it as
https://example.com/. A different page on the same site is a different
link and needs its own approval.Open Voice & past issues to see the history used by the selected publication. The Past issues section lists the sources your writer learned from, how many issues each source contributed, and where each source sits in the import and training cycle. Open AI Writers on the same page to manage the writers built from that history.
You'll see one of these states next to each source:
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.
Newsletters change. When a writer no longer fits, archive it instead of leaving it in the way. Open Voice & past issues > AI Writers, open the writer, and choose Archive.
An archived writer disappears from the Compose writer menu and from the writer list when you set up a scheduled newsletter. Everything it already produced stays exactly where it was: past issues you wrote with it are untouched, and drafts it generated keep appearing under Issues with its name on them.
Archived writers move to an Archived section further down the AI Writers page. You can still read their Style Rules and Reusable Links, but you cannot change them until the writer is back. Choose Restore to make it usable again, with every setting as you left it.
Old drafts stay usable too. You can refine a draft an archived writer produced, and you can still push it to beehiiv.
Two things will stop an archive. If it is the Publication's only active writer, HeyNews keeps it, since every Publication needs at least one. That count covers every writer on the Publication, whoever created it. And if a scheduled newsletter still runs it, you will see which schedule, so you can pause that one or point it at another writer first.
Writers shared across every publication cannot be archived from here.