# 148 Learn Zapier in 30 minutes: AI Agent Automation Tutorial For Beginners (2026)

This podcast explores the use of Zapier's AI agent tool for automation, contrasting it with traditional Zapier workflows. Tom Nassr, co-founder and CEO of X-Ray, explains how to build an AI agent from scratch to summarize emails and send Slack messages, emphasizing the ease of setup and the agent's ability to handle ambiguous data. He highlights that while AI agents offer flexibility and can adapt to verbose information, traditional Zaps provide more granular control over data structure and formatting. The discussion also covers a free resource, search.xray.tech, which indexes automation abilities across multiple platforms like Zapier, Make, and Power Automate.