MCP server · Research
AutomationNation data tools
by retracn
Give your AI 18 helpers to look up flights, hotels, prices, news, jobs, leads and more, all through your Apify account.
This is a set of 18 helpers that let your AI look things up on the web for you: flight prices, hotel prices, product prices, news, jobs, local business leads, YouTube transcripts and more. It is handy if you often ask your AI for real-world facts and it answers with old or made-up information. You connect it once, and then you can just ask in normal words.
What is an MCP server? The 30-second version
On its own, your AI can only chat with what it already knows. An MCP server is a small helper program that gives your AI a new skill or a connection to an app or service. This helper connects your AI to AutomationNation's data tools, which run on your Apify account. When you ask a question, your AI calls the right helper, the helper fetches fresh data, and your AI tells you the answer.
What this MCP server does
You ask your AI something like find cheap flights from London to New York on 12 November. Your AI picks the right tool from this server, for example search_flights, and sends it your details. The helper then runs a small program on your Apify account that looks up Google Flights. A few seconds later, the results come back as a short list your AI can read and summarise for you. Some searches, like local business leads, take a minute or two.
What you can do with it
- Search Google Flights for prices on a route and date
- Search Google Hotels for a city, neighbourhood or landmark
- Search Google Shopping for a product in any country
- Get transcripts of YouTube videos
- Search Google News for a topic, company or person
- Find local businesses on Google Maps as sales leads
- Check whether AI assistants mention your brand
Try asking your AI
- “Find nonstop flights from London to New York on 12 November”
- “What are hotel prices in Paris for the first weekend of December”
- “Get the transcript of this YouTube video and summarise it”
- “Find plumbing businesses in Manchester with no website”
What it gives back to you
You get back short, clean lists and summaries in the chat. For flights, that means prices, airlines and times. For hotels, names and nightly rates. For news, headlines and links. For leads, business names, addresses and phone numbers. If a search is still running, you get what is ready plus a note to fetch the rest.
Before you start
What you need
- A free Apify account (sign up at console.apify.com)
- Your Apify API token from Settings, API & Integrations (a kind of password for apps)
- An AI client that supports MCP, like Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor or ChatGPT with connectors
Good to know
Every search costs money on your Apify account, so keep an eye on your spending, though each run has a cap of about three times its expected cost.
Install it with your AI
Add AutomationNation data tools to your AI, no technical skills needed
You don't install anything by hand. You copy one prompt, paste it into an AI that can work on your computer, and it checks, installs and connects the server for you, asking you when it needs something.
Sign in to get the install prompt
Members get a ready-made prompt that lets the Claude desktop app check AutomationNation data tools, install it and connect it for them, step by step. You don't need any technical skills: you copy, paste and answer a few questions. Your connected AI can also find and install any of the 4,239 MCP servers here for you.
Who it's for
People who use AI for research, travel planning, sales prospecting, marketing or competitive checks and want fresh web data without leaving the chat.
