Automate LinkedIn prospecting with Claude or ChatGPT: find, qualify and contact leads (2026)

Overview

Founders, salespeople and agencies use LinkedIn to find the people they sell to: a list of decision-makers at the right kind of company, a reason to talk to each one, and a short note that gets the request accepted. Done by hand, it means hours of searching, opening profiles one by one to check that the title is still true, and writing a note for each person.

What they want is to give that work to the AI assistant they already use, Claude or ChatGPT, and keep only the decision: who to contact and what to say.

Why it's hard

• Claude and ChatGPT cannot see LinkedIn. LinkedIn's self-serve API lets an app sign you in and post on your own profile. It does not search people, read other profiles or send connection requests. Neither assistant has a LinkedIn connector of its own for this.
• LinkedIn's search has limits. A free account hits a monthly limit on people searches, and the search shows 10 people per page. Sales Navigator has the useful filters (changed jobs, posted recently, headcount, years in role) only with a paid seat.
• A search result is not a lead. Deeper in the results come people whose title belongs to a side business, old roles and empty profiles. You only know by opening each profile.
• Notes have caps. A connection note on a free account is at most 200 characters, and the number of notes per month is limited.
• LinkedIn restricts automation. Its help page on prohibited software says it does not permit bots or extensions that scrape or automate activity on its site, and it does not publish a safe number of requests. Many outreach tools hold your LinkedIn session on their own servers to run campaigns for you.

How Reduck does it

Your AI agent runs Reduck's LinkedIn scripts in your own Chrome, where you are already signed in. It needs no API key and no LinkedIn developer app, and your session stays in your browser.

1. It finds the people. search_people searches by keywords, current title, company, school, location and connection degree, 10 people per page, and returns each person's name, headline, location, degree and the members you have in common. With a Sales Navigator seat, sales_navigator_search_people adds seniority, function, company headcount, years in role, and the "changed jobs" and "posted on LinkedIn" filters, 25 leads per page.
2. It qualifies each lead. get_profile returns the headline, the current company, the About text and every role with its start and end dates. get_profile_posts returns the person's recent posts with their text and age. The agent keeps the leads that match the rule you wrote ("Head of Sales for more than 3 months at a B2B software company of 50 to 500 people") and gives the reason for each one it drops.
3. It drafts a note for each one. Each note uses one real fact from that person's profile or posts, under 200 characters. When there is nothing real to say, the agent skips the lead instead of writing a generic note.
4. It sends only what you approve. connect_with_note sends the requests you approve and returns, for each one, sent, already connected, already pending, no Connect button, or no note quota left. After a person accepts, send_message sends the follow-up you approve, and it has a dry run that stops before the Send click.

What you get: a list of leads that match your rule, each with the facts that qualify it and a drafted note, ready in one request instead of an afternoon of profile checks. Ask again each week for new people.

How to start

1. Create a free account at reduck.ai.
2. Install the Reduck extension in Chrome and pair it.
3. Connect Reduck to your agent: docs.reduck.ai.
4. Ask: "Find {number} {job title} at {kind of company} in {location} on LinkedIn. Read each profile and their recent posts, keep the ones that match {your rule}, and draft a connection note under 200 characters for each. Show me the list and the notes. Send nothing until I approve."

Ways to automate LinkedIn prospecting with AI, compared

As each vendor's own page describes it, read on October 29, 2026. "Not documented" means we did not find it on their page.

Where the others are stronger: Expandi and other cloud tools send on a schedule every day, with limits, warm-up and reply handling, even when your computer is off. Evaboot exports large Sales Navigator lists with company data and emails. Reduck runs when your agent asks, and your Chrome must be open.