AI Agents, Clearly Explained in 40 Minutes | Wade Foster (Zapier)

In this interview podcast, Peter Yang interviews Wade Foster, the co-founder and CEO of Zapier, about AI workflows and agents. Wade explains the AI automation spectrum, differentiating between deterministic workflows and AI agents, and shares a practical example of an email categorization agent he built using Zapier. They discuss the use cases for full agents, the importance of focusing them on specific tasks, and the iterative process of tuning agents for better performance. Wade also touches on the complementary roles of APIs and MCPs, the 90% rule in AI product building, and the significance of customizing AI outputs. Furthermore, Wade shares insights on how to encourage AI adoption within a company through hackathons, knowledge sharing, and demos, and how to evaluate AI fluency in job candidates.