If you’ve experimented at all with AI, you’ll know it’s a handy assistant when it comes to certain tasks, like writing code or generating content. But how can you make sure you’re getting the full benefits of AI by scaling it across your company?
The answer is automation.
Picture this: You attend a lengthy meeting about a new project launch. After you hang up, a transcript of the call lands neatly in your Google Drive folder.
Then, your team’s Slack channel pings with a message. It’s a summary of the meeting, outlining the individual tasks and tagging the assigned team members. When you open up your project management tool, you’ll find each assignment listed in the right folder with a detailed brief.
These aren’t the efforts of a hyper-organized, overly caffeinated employee, but AI and automation combined.
Connecting your AI tools to the rest of your tech stack (be that with chatbots, AI assistants, or workflows) is a game-changer. It doesn’t just knock out the tasks that eat into your day (and soul). It’s the smartest way to scale your impact and bring your business true value. Here’s how.
AI gives you automation superpowers. And Zapier helps you put those powers to use. We make it easy to turn your ideas into workflows so computers can do more work for you. Sign up for AI beta features now.
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It keeps you (and your apps) from working in a silo
Every app you use at work serves its purpose. (They wouldn’t be part of your core tech stack if they didn’t.)
But the problem is that every tool is its own task for us to manage. Especially when the apps in your stack don’t automatically “talk” (or integrate) with one another. All the data stored in one app, for example, doesn’t make it into another without a manual transfer.
That may not be a big deal at first. But as your tech stack grows, keeping track of the tools your team is using—and syncing the data between them (without error)—is no easy feat. Downloading a .CSV file and then uploading it to another platform can quickly become how you spend most of your day.
The same goes for the processes that involve your AI tools.
As an example, I’ve been using AI tools like ChatGPT to create blog article outlines, write product descriptions, and come up with blog ideas.
But I don’t actually spend time within ChatGPT’s interface conversing with the bot. I let Zapier (and my other apps) do the talking for me.
By connecting my favorite apps to ChatGPT, I can create simple workflows that let those apps talk with one another and carry out actions. Zapier can collect a blog topic from a brief in Asana, for example, then prompt ChatGPT to create an article outline, and finally paste those results into a Google Doc—no human intervention necessary.
When your AI tools and the rest of your tech stack work together, you can build better processes that automatically move information from one app to another—eliminating the time you spend hopping between tools.
It helps bring your automation ideas to life
By bringing AI to the workflows you use every day (involving apps like Slack, Notion, or HubSpot), you can build smarter workflows that solve your unique business problems. That’s a given.
But what if you struggle to bring your automation ideas to life or you’re not sure which business processes you should be automating in the first place?
The magic of AI is that it can suggest the right workflows for the job—then have it build those solutions for you. (Tools like Zapier Canvas and Copilot have got this locked down.) That means even if you have virtually zero automation experience, you can use AI to help you finesse and visualize your business-critical processes, and get recommendations and assistance through every step of the way.
This makes automation so much more actionable, because you can describe a workflow or problem in the simplest of terms, and chat with assistants or bots to come up with—then build—the solution, including the right apps for the job.
That makes automation actionable to everyone, regardless of their technical background. By letting AI do the heavy lifting, you’ll be moving your business forward in ways that were never possible before.
It helps you scale your business and impact—faster
Automation doesn’t just streamline your AI processes. It also speeds them up.
We all know that, as your business grows, the volume of data you handle will increase. Trying to make sense of growing information—and then learning from it—could take your team weeks, months, maybe forever.
Using AI and automation together means creating a system that collects that data automatically, identifies certain patterns, and then offers up insights in an expedited way. And, on the flipside, because you can train AI on your own knowledge sources, it can follow tailored instructions to summarize, categorize, and relay information at scale—all without compromising your team’s personal productivity.
And this doesn’t just apply to your business’s overall strategy. AI can help you improve your customer, marketing, and sales experiences, while automation can help you scale them.
By leveraging tools like Zapier Chatbots, Central, or ChatGPT, you can create bots that answer support questions and resolve tickets (even when your team is away). You can set up workflows and AI assistants that write personalized sales emails and send them out at scale. Instead of firing off hurried emails whenever you notice a new lead in your pipeline, you’re automatically reaching out to 100 times more folks as soon as they show interest.
In business, where speed to lead can make all the difference between a purchase and a missed opportunity, that’s a game-changer.
From handling more customer queries to creating marketing campaigns that reach a larger audience, you can give your business scale-up superpowers—even if you have limited resources.
It helps you focus on the work that matters
Let’s be clear: AI and automation shouldn’t replace every single aspect of your job.
What it should do is change how you work.
As a writer, combining AI and automation has helped me knock a lot of admin off my plate, freeing me up to focus on more creative, strategic work like writing long-form articles and defining content strategy.
Not only am I doing more of what I enjoy, but it also has the happy side-effect of increasing my productivity, as I’m not fighting email fatigue or getting side-tracked.
By entrusting AI and automation to deal with time-consuming, monotonous tasks (like combing through data or sorting through your email inbox), you’ll be able to pursue higher-value tasks that require higher-level thinking—and the more complex problems that arise in your business.
Ultimately, by using AI and automation in tandem, employees can be happier and more productive, which will have a positive impact on your company’s bottom line.
Power your business with AI and automation
Eager to start using AI and automation together to streamline and supercharge your work processes? Discover some of the best ways you can leverage AI and automation with our AI tools:
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Visualize, plan, and automate business-critical processes with Zapier Canvas.
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Teach AI bots to work across your favorite apps with Zapier Central.
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Create custom AI chatbots to engage customers and take action with Zapier Chatbots.
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Discover ways to automate ChatGPT and OpenAI and get more out of your workflows.
This article was originally published in September 2023. It was most recently updated in April 2024.