Welcome back to Inc.’s 1 Smart Business Story! Most founders use AI to save a few minutes here and there, but the CEO of software company Zapier, Wade Foster, used it to build an entire team.

This “robot staff” provides daily briefs, drafts emails and challenges him on decisions. Foster’s AI agents acts like a chief of staff, strategist, networking coach, and hiring adviser to help him focus on the decisions that matter most.

Inc. contributor Chris Morris reported how Foster uses AI for hiring new employees by constructing a seven agent “war council” that evaluates candidates from different perspectives. By incorporating AI tools as a team member instead of just a shortcut-maker, Foster has both saved time and improved processes.

Perhaps most interestingly, Foster created an AI agent that argues with him. Worrying about getting trapped in an echo chamber, he instructed an agent to challenge his assumptions and poke holes in his thinking. In one test, when he floated eliminating Zapier's free tier, the AI pushed back and presented alternative approaches. Rather than seeking validation, Foster uses AI as a source of constructive friction.

In this story you’ll discover:

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From automated briefings to a seven-agent hiring council, Foster says his systems save him 2 hours a day and protect his attention.

BY CHRIS MORRIS

Zapier makes tools for businesses to help automate apps and services, so it’s probably not a big surprise that the company’s CEO Wade Foster is bullish on artificial intelligence. That enthusiasm extends into his own day to day routines as well.

On a recent episode of the My First Million podcast, Foster described to hosts Sam Parr and Shaan Puri several of the ways he has incorporated AI into his daily workflow at the San Francisco-based company, which he co-founded in 2012 and that touts a $5 billion valuation. Foster said he uses the tools to increase his output, without increasing the number of hours he works.

All totaled, he said, AI tools save him about two hours per day—and keeps him more focused on tasks that are critical. Here are some of the ways Zapier is using AI to lighten Foster’s load.

Foster said he uses a collection of different AI automations and agents to handle recurring tasks, freeing him from having to manually initiate those. That includes things like customer relations management (CRM) with enterprise customers and acting as a sounding board for ideas. He calls it his “robot staff.”

“This is kind of like my chief of staff that does like a whole bunch of different automations and agents for me,” he said.

By having AI operating in the background, that frees him up from initiating and monitoring several small tasks.

At 6:00 a.m. every day, Foster receives an AI generated Slack message that has looked through his calendar, email, meeting notes and more. It’s a daily brief, of sorts, showing him what’s on his plate that day.

At the end of the day, the system runs another report, which scours through his meeting notes, unfinished to-dos, outstanding email and more.

The most valuable service it provides in that end of day brief, though, is asking him how the day went. That serves as a great learning tool for the AI.

“When I say how the day went, I basically say ‘it was a good day for this reason’ or ‘it was a bad day for this reason’,” Foster said. “So now all that stuff is getting logged and it’s learning how to tune my day to help me have more good days than bad days.”

The AI will also take action on some items when it can, such as making an introduction he committed to during a meeting.

“It’s not just giving you a brief and sort of teeing it up for you to do. It’s now saying I’ll just do that for you,” he said.

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