Most weeks on Agents of Scale, you’ll hear from CEOs and execs scaling AI across industries. But this week, we’re zooming in on how AI can transform a single person - and by extension, entire businesses.

Joe’s story starts with living in his car after cycling through 32 jobs. Then he discovered Zapier. What began as small automations for a roofing company turned into a career building systems for influencers, enterprises, and beyond.

In this episode, Zapier CEO Wade Foster talks with Joe about the moment automation “clicked,” how he taught himself APIs with the help of AI, and why curiosity and small wins can completely rewrite your trajectory.

What started as a “texting call center” for real estate leads is now an enterprise platform powering millions of conversations across industries. Verse - acquired by NICE and trusted by brands in healthcare, higher ed, and financial services - evolved from 100% human to AI-first, with humans still in the loop to train, guide, and build trust.

Zapier CEO Wade Foster sits down with Verse co-founder Avi Tal to talk about how Verse layered automation one step at a time, why clients went from avoiding the word “AI” to demanding it, and how Zapier became their secret weapon for integrating with any CRM without armies of engineers.

Before AI copilots and receptionists, trades pros were still running businesses from binders and carbon-copy invoices. Jobber set out to change that - and today powers 300,000+ plumbers, landscapers, and contractors.

CTO Forrest Zeisler joins Zapier CEO Wade Foster to share how the trades moved from manual chaos to AI copilots that have already booked 200,000+ after-hours calls and coached pros to win more work.

They dig into why trust - not hype - matters most when scaling AI in overlooked industries, how customer voice guides Jobber’s roadmap (all the way to board meetings), and why the trades might be the sector that benefits most from AI.

Gamma had signups, usage, and early traction - but growth was flat.

With the fundraising climate collapsing and runway shrinking, co-founder Jon Noronha and his team realized traction alone wouldn’t cut it. In this episode, Jon joins Zapier CEO Wade Foster to share how Gamma rebuilt its product in three months, unlocked runaway growth, and scaled past $50M ARR in just six. He also explains why “dabbling” in AI isn’t enough, how to rethink hiring for lean AI-native teams, and what it really feels like when product-market fit finally clicks.

Zapier’s Wade Foster talks with Newfront CEO Spike Lipkin to learn how an AI-powered insurance brokerage is rethinking a $2 trillion industry, without forcing new workflows or long trainings.

Spike shares the moments where AI finally matched the hype—from a hackathon where half of projects went straight into production, to an AI benefits bot that saves HR teams a month of work every year, to contract reviews that now take just 20 seconds.

The two also dig into why 1 in 5 unicorns trust Newfront with their insurance needs in a $2T industry where a single gap in coverage can make or break a business, how “the email inbox is the API” became their rallying cry, and why the real future of work might mean less doing, more delegating—and much stronger client relationships.

In this episode, Zapier’s Wade Foster talks with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta and Enterprise AI Transformation lead Seth Wylie about how they got 90% of their teams actively using AI - and not because they had to, but because they realized it made them better at their jobs.

From grassroots experimentation meetups (that employees attend even on PTO) to personalized GPTs in the voice of execs, Nick and Seth share the cultural unlocks that made AI feel accessible, personal, and valuable. They explain how psychological safety, not top-down mandates, created a movement - and why AI’s most powerful role might be helping your people break out of theirs.

Whether you're leading a company or reinventing your own role, this is a masterclass in how to become irreplaceable.

Before Copilots, Agents, or VC cash—Andrew Bialecki hit $1 million in revenue without hiring a single employee. That early discipline—automate everything, obsess over the customer, and build real product value—carried Klaviyo all the way to a 2023 IPO and a business that still runs lean. But now we’re in the acceleration age. AI is everywhere, speed is free, and the temptation to move fast and automate everything is real. In this episode, Andrew joins fellow bootstrapped founder Wade Foster to unpack what it means to lead a company through AI's massive transformation, and the hard rewiring that starts at the top.