How to Connect Apify to an AI Agent
Apify is the easiest way to scrape the web at scale. Pre-built Actors for Google Maps, LinkedIn, Amazon, Instagram, and just about anywhere else, plus the option to roll your own. The hard part is operating it day to day. You log into the console, find the Actor, paste in inputs, start the run, wait for it to finish, then download the dataset and figure out what to do with it next.
Carly is a full-service AI agent with 60+ integrations — email, calendar, project management, CRM, file storage, messaging, and more. Apify is one of those integrations. Once connected, you can run any Actor on your account by emailing carly@usecarly.com or chatting with your agent at dashboard.carlyassistant.com. The agent kicks off the run, waits for it to finish, and pipes the results wherever you want them.
Connect Apify
Apify uses an API key. In your Apify Console, go to Settings → Integrations and create a new API token. Then go to dashboard.carlyassistant.com/integrations, find Apify under Data & Enrichment, click Connect, and paste the token. That’s it.
Your agent can now run any Actor on your account, read datasets, and push the data into your other connected tools. See the full Apify integration page for use cases and FAQs.
What Your Agent Can Do With Apify
Run Any Actor on Demand
Email your agent:
To: carly@usecarly.com Subject: Scrape Maps
Run the Google Maps scraper on Apify for “dentists in Austin TX” — top 100 results. When it finishes, drop name, address, phone, website, and rating into the “Austin Dentists” Google Sheet.
The agent fires off the Actor with the right inputs, waits for the run to finish, pulls the dataset, and pushes the cleaned data into your Sheet. One message, one workflow, no Apify console.
Schedule Recurring Scrapes
Chat message to your agent:
Every Monday at 9 AM, run the LinkedIn jobs Actor for “marketing director” roles in NYC posted in the last week. Email me a digest with the top 30 results.
The agent runs the same Actor every Monday and sends the digest. No cron jobs, no custom code.
Pipe Scraped Data Into Your CRM
To: carly@usecarly.com Subject: Find prospects
Run the Apify SaaS company scraper for companies in California with 50–500 employees in the marketing tech category. Add the top 25 to HubSpot as new companies and create a contact for each company’s listed founder.
The agent runs the scraper, deduplicates against your existing HubSpot records, and creates the companies and contacts with the data filled in. Manual prospecting that takes an hour happens in minutes.
Summarize Run Results
Chat message to your agent:
What did this morning’s Glassdoor reviews scraper return? Just give me the headline numbers and any 1-star reviews.
The agent queries the most recent dataset, summarizes the volume and rating distribution, and pulls the negative reviews verbatim.
The Agent Learns How You Work
After you run a few Actors, the agent learns which ones you use most, what default inputs you prefer, and where you usually want the output to go. You stop spelling out “drop the results into Sheets” — the agent assumes it.
This applies across everything — not just Apify. The agent remembers your prospect criteria, your reporting format, and the way you structure your data. The more you use it, the less you have to explain.
Build a Dedicated Scraping Agent
Your main agent handles everything for you. But you can also create specialized email agents with their own email addresses for specific scraping jobs.
You are a competitive intelligence assistant. When someone emails you with a competitor name:
1. Run the Apify Google Maps scraper to find their business listings
2. Run the Apify Instagram scraper to find their latest posts
3. Run the Apify SERP scraper to find recent press mentions
4. Compile everything into a single email digest with key findings
Don't fabricate data — only return what the Actors actually find.Give this agent a dedicated address like intel@yourdomain.usecarly.com. Anyone on the team can email it a competitor name and get a research dump back.
Workflows That Replace Manual Scraping
Local Lead Generation
A sales rep needs 100 prospects in a new city. The agent:
- Runs the Google Maps scraper for the target category
- Filters out chains and franchises
- Enriches each business with phone, website, and rating
- Pushes the cleaned list into the CRM
- Replies to the rep with the count and any quality flags
What was a multi-hour task becomes a one-message ask.
Daily Competitor Monitoring
To: carly@usecarly.com Subject: Daily competitor check
Run the Apify SERP scraper for our top 5 competitor brand names every morning. Email me anything new in the top 5 results since yesterday.
The agent watches Google for changes and only emails you when something interesting happens. No noise, no wasted attention.
Job Board Monitoring
A recruiter wants new roles posted across multiple job boards. The agent runs the relevant Apify Actors, deduplicates results, and emails a digest. The recruiter never logs into a job board again.
Apify + Other Integrations
Because your agent connects to 60+ tools, scraped data doesn’t sit in Apify waiting to be acted on. The agent chains:
- Apify + Google Sheets — Drop datasets into Sheets with the right columns
- Apify + HubSpot — Push scraped contacts straight into your CRM
- Apify + Slack — Post run summaries into the team channel
- Apify + Notion — Save scraped data into a Notion database
- Apify + Gmail — Email the dataset as a CSV attachment
- Apify + SerpApi — Combine SERP data with deep page scraping for competitive analysis
FAQ
Do I need a paid Apify plan?
The free tier works for low-volume scraping. For real production use, you’ll want a paid plan with enough compute units for your run volume. Carly works the same on either.
Can the agent run my custom Apify Actors?
Yes. Any Actor on your account — public from the Store or private ones you’ve written — can be run by Carly. Just tell her which one and what inputs to pass.
How does the agent handle long-running Actors?
The agent waits for the run to complete and notifies you when the dataset is ready. For very long runs, it can email you a status update partway through if you ask.
Can the agent transform the data before saving it?
Yes. Tell the agent which columns to keep, how to dedupe, what to filter out, and what format you want. The data lands in Sheets, your CRM, or wherever already cleaned.
Will the agent respect my Apify rate limits?
Yes. The agent uses Apify’s standard API and respects the same rate limits and compute units as any other client. Heavy scrapes count against your plan as they normally would.
What’s the difference between the main agent and a specialized email agent?
Carly is your personal AI assistant — it handles Apify, email, scheduling, and 60+ other tools. Specialized email agents are AI employees you create for specific customer-facing or team-facing jobs — they get their own email addresses and operate autonomously from their own inboxes.
Connect Apify to your Carly agent →
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