Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring? Ep 721: Inside Zapier's AI Transformation
Aug 1, 2025
Brandon Sammut, Chief People Officer at Zapier, leads the company's AI transformation, focusing on embedding AI into operations while enhancing the human touch. He discusses the urgency behind Zapier's 'Code Red' for AI adoption and its impact on productivity and engagement. Brandon emphasizes the importance of culture over technology, elaborating on AI fluency requirements for new hires and how AI can personalize candidate experiences. He advocates for psychological safety and experimentation as keys to successful AI integration, ensuring humans remain central in critical moments.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Code Red Sparked Rapid Learning
- Zapier issued a "Code Red" in March 2023 to mobilize the company around AI without a perfect plan.
- Starting to build and learn before consensus created psychological safety and momentum.
Set Guardrails, Then Scale Learning
- Create clear AI use guidelines to define safe guardrails and expand creative risk-taking.
- Treat AI as a tool and weave fluency into existing rituals like onboarding and hack weeks.
Support Team Halved Handle Time
- Customer support cut average ticket handle time by 50% using AI summaries and operations changes.
- The work became more interesting and engagement rose by 20–30 points after adopting AI.