Presented by Zapier: https://zapier.com/

👉 Resources: https://thenextnewthing.ai/l/wade-resources
👉 Wade Foster (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster/

Zapier just gave AI agents access to 10,000+ apps—and it completely changed how Wade Foster works.

In this episode of The Next New Thing, Wade (Zapier’s CEO) shows how their new SDK lets tools like Claude, Cursor, and Codex directly interact with your entire stack—Slack, Gmail, HubSpot, databases, and more.

Instead of switching between apps, Wade now does everything through an agent: checking Slack, reviewing customers, generating emails, prepping meetings, and even auditing hiring decisions.

The key shift isn’t just automation—it’s turning your entire workflow into something an agent can run end-to-end.

He walks through how he built a personal “CEO CRM” that pulls data from multiple systems, identifies which customers need attention, and drafts outreach emails automatically. From there, he shows how these workflows evolve into reusable skills, then into fully automated systems that run in the background.

The result: less time clicking through tools—and more time operating at a higher level.

⏱ Timestamps
00:00 Giving AI agents access to all your tools
00:27 Zapier SDK launch (open beta)
01:12 Connecting agents to 10,000+ apps
01:57 Why this changes how work gets done
02:24 Installing the SDK in seconds
03:00 Running real workflows inside an agent
03:27 Demo mode (protecting sensitive data)
04:21 SDK vs MCP (what’s different)
05:24 Building a personal CEO CRM
06:27 Pulling data from HubSpot, Databricks, Gong
07:30 Identifying accounts that need attention
08:06 Generating outreach emails automatically
09:00 Keeping humans in the loop (draft vs send)
09:45 Using Clay to verify contact data
10:48 Training AI on your writing style
11:24 Building reusable workflows (skills)
12:00 Daily brief automation (calendar, email, tasks)
13:12 Meeting prep generated automatically
14:06 AI reviewing hiring decisions
15:00 Advisory council of AI personas
15:45 Turning 30-min tasks into 5-min tasks
16:21 Creating your own daily brief system
17:15 Finding what to automate
18:00 Using AI to suggest new workflows
19:03 Reviewing past chats for automation ideas
20:06 Turning repeated tasks into skills
20:42 From manual → automated workflows
21:00 Cron jobs and background execution

👉 Join us: https://thenextnewthing.ai/