United StatesTechnology and telecom2023 – ongoing

Zapier

Company-wide AI adoption and AI-fluency hiring standard

Zapier reported 97% employee AI adoption in 2025 and made AI fluency a hiring requirement

WorkingCompany's own claimOfficial ↗

Problem

In early 2023, after the jump from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4, fewer than 10% of Zapier's employees used AI in their work each week. CEO Wade Foster treated the gap as urgent for a company that sells automation software.

Approach

Foster declared a company-wide 'code red' and paused regular work for a week so that every function, from engineering to finance, built something with AI. Zapier later studied how top performers in each role used AI and, from May 2025, required all new hires to show AI fluency, assessed against a four-level rubric by role that is revised every six months. Teams built AI automations in areas such as support and lead routing.

Results

97%AI adoption among employees reported in December 2025Company's own claim[2]

<10% → 50%+weekly AI use before and one week after the company-wide hackathonCompany's own claim[1]

200+ hhours saved a month in revenue operations through automated lead routingCompany's own claim[2]

Takeaway

Zapier spread AI use by pausing normal work for a company-wide hackathon and setting a hiring standard. Its adoption figures measure different things, weekly use in 2023 and overall adoption in 2025, and cannot be compared directly.

Sources

How a week-long hackathon transformed Zapier's AI culture
Zapier2025Company publication
How to evaluate AI fluency in your team – and in new recruits
Indeed17 Feb 2026News article

Source summaries

[1]Zapier2025

Zapier CEO Wade Foster declared a 'code red' and held a week-long hackathon in which all departments built something with AI. Zapier said weekly AI use rose from just under 10% to over 50% within a week. From May 2025, new hires had to show AI fluency, assessed with a four-tier rubric based on how top performers used AI.

[2]Indeed17 Feb 2026

Indeed reported that Zapier assessed every candidate's AI skills, though it did not always use a technical test. Its chief people and AI transformation officer said the required fluency level varied by role. Citing a December 2025 Zapier report, it gives 97% adoption, support response times cut by more than 40% and over 200 hours a month saved in revenue operations.

Full details are in the original sources.

Added 25 Oct 2026 · Updated 25 Oct 2026