Isaac Smith, AI Ops Manager at Klue, faced a challenge that will sound familiar to many fast-growing companies. His go-to-market (GTM) team was full of eager innovators. Everyone wanted to use AI to speed up their work. But without a shared system, each person was working in silos.
“Our GTM team had everyone trying to build their own AI solutions and rebuilding the same stuff over and over,” Isaac said. “We only have data in five or six places, but people kept recreating 90% identical workflows because there was no way to share or build on each other’s work. Instead of acting like a nimble startup, we were behaving like a big, slow organization.”
The solution: a centralized automation framework with Zapier as the brain and Slack as the front-end. Now, instead of duplicating effort, team members snap together modular building blocks to create their own AI assistants.
Klue’s results, by the numbers:
8,000+ workflows run in 8 months
900+ hours saved in just two quarters (≈300 hours/month)
Multiple SaaS subscriptions replaced with in-house automations
Dozens of personal assistants built by non-technical team members
Company-wide cultural shift to an automation-first mindset
Building a centralized framework
Before Zapier, Klue’s GTM team had no central structure for automation. If someone needed customer data from HubSpot or call information from Gong, they built a one-off solution. The problem was that three other people might already have built something almost identical. No one had visibility or a way to reuse those workflows.
Isaac solved this by creating a modular framework with Zapier at the center. “Think of it like a library of building blocks,” he said. “We have two types: blocks that grab data — from HubSpot, Gong, or other sources, and blocks that do something with that data, like analyze it, format it, or recommend content. Instead of everyone rebuilding the same HubSpot connection, they just use the existing block and focus on their unique piece.”
Zapier orchestrates it all, triggering it from Slack, where the team already works. Anyone can test new workflows in a sandbox environment before promoting them to production. As usage grows, the system automatically improves descriptions and indexing, making workflows easier to find and reuse.
“Instead of everyone duplicating work, we now have a system where each improvement helps the whole team,” Isaac said.
Personalized assistants for every need
With the framework in place, team members began building their own custom assistants. In Slack, they simply ask for what they need:
Pull a call summary from Gong.
Find the right customer asset from Klue’s content library.
Zapier orchestrates the workflow, calling the right functions, checking metadata, and returning results directly in Slack. Isaac’s team even nicknamed their AI intern “Liam.”
“Anyone can pull any information we have and immediately use it in another workflow,” Isaac said. “People build their own assistants tailored to exactly what they need.”
By standardizing the back-end while keeping the front-end flexible, Klue gave non-technical employees the freedom to solve their own problems quickly.
Measuring impact with an audit trail
One of the most impressive parts of Klue’s system is its built-in measurement. Every Zap run is logged in a Zapier-powered audit trail. Each action is tagged with an estimated time saving, based on historical benchmarks. This means Isaac can report exactly how much time automation has saved.
“When we report to the board, we can actually quantify the impact,” Isaac said. “It’s not just anecdotes — we know exactly how much time we’re saving.”
The audit trail also feeds back into the system. If workflows confuse functions or fail, the metadata improves over time, making future runs more accurate. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle of efficiency.
Driving efficiency and cutting costs
Klue didn’t just save time. They also saved money by replacing multiple SaaS subscriptions with Zapier-built workflows. “When software renewals come up, instead of auto-renewing expensive tools, we ask: can we just build this ourselves?” Isaac said. In many cases, the answer was yes.
By consolidating functionality inside their Zapier-powered system, Klue reduced software bloat while keeping innovation in-house. The modular design means each new workflow compounds in value, because it becomes a building block for others.
Cultural transformation: turning users into builders
The biggest impact might be cultural. Before Zapier, Isaac was the person everyone came to for fixes. Now, his role is to teach others to build. “People don’t accept tedious work anymore,” he said. “They come to me saying, ‘Can we automate this?’ Instead of being the fixer, I’m the coach.”
Employees who never touched code are now creating their own workflows. SDRs, AEs, and marketers are snapping together blocks to build assistants Isaac never would have imagined. Zapier democratized innovation across the team.
“Zapier turned our GTM team into builders instead of just users,” Isaac said. “It didn’t just automate our work — it democratized our ability to innovate.”
Results beyond efficiency
For Isaac, Zapier has completely rewired his approach to problem-solving. “My first instinct for any repetitive task is now: how do I build this once so no one has to do it manually again?” he said. That mindset spread quickly across the team.
By centralizing workflows, empowering employees, and quantifying impact, Klue created a system that doesn’t just save time — it compounds in value with every use. What started as an attempt to eliminate duplicate work became a foundation for scaling smarter and faster.
About Klue
Company size: 200-500
Industry: SaaS
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
“Zapier makes me feel like a kid again, playing with Legos. It gave us a way to snap together building blocks, empower every team member, and scale innovation. Instead of slowing down, we’re moving faster than ever.”
Isaac Smith is a 2025 Zappy Awards winner in the Sales Automator of the Year category.
