Explore the most actionable ideas from Zapier's AI Playbook—presented in partnership with Glean—and learn how to move from experiments to measurable business impact. You’ll see how Zapier scaled org-wide AI adoption and how to apply those tactics with Agents, Canvas, and orchestration patterns in your own team.

Why this matters in 2026

Zapier publicly shared how it drove company-wide AI adoption—reaching 89% active usage by spring 2025—and has since open-sourced additional tactics, reporting 97% weekly usage across the company. Their playbook emphasises urgency (“Code Red”), foundations (guardrails, enablement), and habit-building (hackathons, champions). Use the same approach to turn pilots into production results.

Key points / benefits

• Unlock new efficiencies. Orchestrate AI where work already happens—workflows, agents, and chatbots—rather than keeping AI in silos.

• Level up collaboration. Plan and communicate end-to-end systems in Canvas, then ship automations and agents that match the plan.

• Standardise, then scale. Use repeatable templates, AI fluency sprints, and hackathons to spread capability beyond a single team.

What’s new or how it works

Zapier as an AI orchestration platform. You can add AI at three layers—AI steps in Zaps, Agents, and customer chatbots—and connect it to thousands of tools your teams already use. This unifies prompts, data, and actions in one place.

Canvas for strategy → build. Canvas is a free, AI-powered diagramming tool to design processes, map dependencies, and turn ideas into automations with AI suggestions. Use it to align stakeholders before you create Zaps or Agents.

Agents to do multi-step work. With Zapier Agents, you can create AI teammates that use company knowledge and act across 8,000+ apps, pausing for human review at decision points and logging what happened.

Practical steps

1. Create urgency and a safe runway
   Announce a time-boxed push (Zapier’s “Code Red” moment), publish AI use guidelines, and appoint champions. This sparks momentum while keeping data usage safe.
   
   

2. Run an AI fluency sprint + hackathon
   Offer ~25 hours of self-paced learning, then run a company hackathon to convert learning into working prototypes. Celebrate wins and document patterns for reuse.
   
   

3. Design in Canvas, ship with Zaps and Agents
   Workshop the workflow in Canvas; agree triggers, systems, and approvals. Then implement with Zaps (for linear flows) or Agents (for goal-directed, multi-step work).
   
   

4. Start with 2–3 high-impact use cases
   Examples that generalise well:

• Inbox & scheduling triage: draft replies, route emails, and book meetings.

• Lead management: enrich, qualify, and notify SDRs with summaries.

• Support deflection: suggest answers with citations, create/update tickets.

• Use Glean to surface internal knowledge and citations in these flows.

5. Govern and measure
   Turn on human-in-the-loop where needed, require audit trails, and track time-to-complete, accuracy, deflection, and % human approvals. Grow wins into shared templates and roll out to adjacent teams.

Examples you can model

• AI inbox concierge
  Canvas the flow → Agent drafts replies, proposes next steps, and schedules with your calendar app; a Zap logs outcomes to CRM and Slack/Teams.
  
  

• Marketing content factory
  Use orchestration patterns to turn call notes and webinars into posts, briefs, and emails across channels—automatically.
  
  

• Support knowledge loop
  Agent searches internal knowledge (e.g., Glean) with citations, drafts answers, and updates ServiceNow/Zendesk. A Zap captures unresolved cases for weekly review.

FAQs

Q1: What is Zapier’s AI Playbook?

A: It’s a set of practices Zapier used to drive company-wide AI adoption—89% by spring 2025—including “Code Red” urgency, guardrails, enablement, hackathons, and champions. Zapier has since open-sourced additional tactics (97% weekly usage). Zapier+1

Q2: How does AI improve workflow efficiency with Zapier?

A: Add AI where it fits: as a step in a Zap, as a goal-directed Agent, or as a customer chatbot. Canvas helps design the system; Zaps/Agents execute; everything connects to the apps your teams use. Zapier+1

Q3: What tools are recommended for getting started?

A: Canvas for mapping, Zaps for linear automations, Agents for multi-step work that benefits from context and pause points, plus knowledge tools like Glean for citations and internal answers. Zapier+1

Summary

Zapier’s AI Playbook offers a practical path to scale: create urgency, build safety and fluency, design in Canvas, then automate with Zaps and Agents across 8,000+ apps—with Glean providing enterprise context and citations. Want a guided rollout for 2026? Generation Digital can help design your programme, templates, and governance.