The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

SaaStr 821: Swapping Stories - Building AI-First Companies: Insights from Zapier’s CEO and Co-Founder Wade Foster

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Sep 17, 2025

Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier, shares insights on leading an AI-driven automation company. He discusses Zapier's evolution from basic workflows to advanced agentic systems. Foster highlights the importance of AI fluency for new hires and the cultural shift at Zapier towards innovation. He also offers tips for companies on hiring and upskilling for an AI-first future. The conversation dives into practical AI applications, including voice technologies and automated renewals, making it a must-listen for AI enthusiasts and business leaders alike.

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ADVICE

Embed AI As Composable Workflow Steps

Treat AI as composable steps inside workflows: enrich, gather context, then run prompts to generate outputs.
Sequence multiple prompts to produce prep guides, emails, or research artifacts within a single automated flow.

INSIGHT

Hybrid Automation Outperforms Pure Agents

Effective automation mixes deterministic workflows with agentic workflows rather than replacing one with the other.
Deterministic steps remain cheap and reliable while agents handle tasks that require reasoning or synthesis.

ADVICE

Keep Humans In The Last Mile

Insert humans at the last mile of agentic workflows to QA outputs and correct errors before action.
Keep humans responsible for edge cases until model reliability reaches acceptable thresholds for your business.

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SaaStr 821: Swapping Stories - Building AI-First Companies: Insights from Zapier’s CEO and Co-Founder Wade Foster Join us for an in-depth conversation with Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier, on the SaaStr AI Swapping Stories Podcast! Wade shares how Zapier is leading the way in AI-powered automation, the evolution from simple workflows to agentic systems, and why AI fluency is now a must-have for every new hire.

In this episode, we discuss:

The journey of Zapier from integration tool to AI orchestration platform
Real-world examples of agentic workflows and automation at scale
How Zapier’s culture embraces “don’t be a robot, build a robot”
The impact of AI on sales, customer success, and internal operations
Tips for companies looking to hire and upskill for an AI-first future
The latest trends in AI tools, including voice-to-text and workflow automation

Whether you’re a founder, operator, or just curious about the future of work, this episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiration.

And see you at Zapconnect next week (sign up here - it's free.)

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