My 3 takeaways from Zapier's 2026 AI strategy company hangout

Nov 22, 2025

tl;dr: I joined Zapier's 2026 AI Transformation Strategy Company Hangout. Their focus on experimentation reminded me of a line from Jeff Bezos about reducing the cost of experimenting to foster innovation. I'm grateful they made it public for the first time!

Enthusiasm, experimentation, and accountability.

These are the three words that come to mind when I think about "Zapier's 2026 AI Transformation Strategy Company Hangout." Zapier ↗ opened its weekly all-hands meeting to the public for the first time and transparently shared its strategy to become an AI-first company.

Screenshot of a Zapier all hands public meeting featuring Wade Foster, Co-founder and CEO of Zapier, discussing the impact and strategy of AI transformation in automation workflows

You could feel the enthusiasm and energy when:

Wade recalled the AI debut and the "Code Red: Competing in an AI-First World" after GPT-4's launch,
Brandon set out how they plan to rethink how work gets done with a clean slate approach,
Lauren presented support improvements with "Ticket Co-Pilot," their own solution, featuring a live demo by Chase,
and Emilie shared her AI automation journey, from zero to hero, with a workflow now used by many.

Everything was about pushing the limits. About trying. About finding new ways to use AI to better serve customers while maintaining a fulfilling work environment. At Zapier, they experiment:

We ran a hackathon. This was probably the most important thing we did (along with talking to hundreds of different customers). And this is the most valuable thing you can do to jumpstart (AI) adoption inside your company.

—Wade Foster, Co-founder and CEO at Zapier

And it's not that they run a hackathon here and there. Experimentation is an important part of their culture:

We talk about AI adoption as raising the floor. It's building AI fluency within the team. It's making sure we have a strong culture of experimentation. It's making sure we're sharing quickly what we're learning and trying. It's all incredibly important.

—Brandon Sammut (Chief People & AI Transformation Officer at Zapier)

They share:

And that is why in 2026, I'm mentoring other folks, including Zapier customers to build their own AI solutions.

—Emilie Mabie (Sr. AI Automation Engineer for HR)

They give the opportunity to learn and grow:

We launched an AI fluency program. So it's 25 hours of self-paced learning content with builder challenges at the end.

—Lauren Franklin (VP of Support, Zapier)

This culture of experimentation reminds me of Jeff Bezos's talk at MIT (Amazon - Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company ↗).

Jeff Bezos delivering a keynote at MIT, discussing how reducing the cost of experimentation drives innovation.

He answered a question about innovation with this:

The way to get a lot of innovation in a company, in my opinion, is to try and is to work very, very hard to reduce the costs of doing experiments.

—Jeff Bezos

While enthusiasm and experimentation are necessary to break through in the AI-first world we're heading into, they must be coupled with rigor.

We need to make sure what's being built is high quality and meets standards.

—Wade Foster

Brandon highlighted the need for "intellectual honesty" when presenting the "talent and culture" area of their new scorecards:

The opportunity is really big and we can get really excited about it, but we need folks to maintain a ton of intellectual honesty about the stuff that's like really good and the stuff that's just not there yet.

—Brandon Sammut

And Wade added this line from Bryan:

You can delegate the work but you can't delegate the accountability.

—Bryan Helmig (Co-founder and CTO at Zapier)

Thanks to the Zapier team for opening this event to the public. I really appreciate it.

That's all I have for today! Talk soon 👋