There are lots of reasons you might find yourself in need of a YouTube transcript. Left your headphones at home? You can use transcripts to "read" a video while keeping the volume all the way down. They also make it easier to translate content into other languages. And that hour-long video essay on symbolism in "The Shining"? Maybe it'll make more sense when you've got the text laid out right in front of you. Maybe.

If you're as loyal to the written word as I am, you're in luck. The process to get a transcript of a YouTube video is fairly straightforward: just expand the description box and click the Show transcript button.

Here, I'll walk through the steps for YouTube desktop and mobile, and give you a few tips on using transcripts.

Table of contents:

• What is a YouTube video transcript?

• How to transcribe YouTube videos on desktop

• How to transcribe YouTube videos on mobile

• Alternate ways to transcribe a YouTube video

• How do YouTube transcripts work?

• What you can do with YouTube transcripts

• Automatically transcribe YouTube videos with Zapier

• YouTube transcript FAQ

What is a YouTube video transcript?

A YouTube video transcript is a text version of all the words spoken during a video. Any audio that's recognizable as speech gets transcribed and converted into a readable format.

A transcript can be displayed as real-time closed captions or as scrollable text. 

How to transcribe YouTube videos on desktop

If you're using YouTube on desktop, the transcript feature is just a few clicks away.

1. Go to the video you want transcribed.

2. Click the description box to expand it. 

   

3. Scroll to the very bottom of the description box to find the Transcript section. Click the Show transcript button.

   

4. YouTube will pull you back up to the top of the page. Next to the video player, you'll see a lovely new box with a full transcript waiting for you.

   

5. From here, you can copy the text and paste it wherever you want it.

Click the three dots in the top-right to toggle timestamps on or off, or click on any section of the transcript to jump straight to that part of the video.

How to transcribe YouTube videos on mobile

To get a transcript on your phone, you'll need the YouTube app (the mobile website doesn't have a Show transcript option).

1. Open the YouTube app on your mobile device, and go to the video you want to transcribe.

2. Tap below the video player where it says ...more to open the full description box. (You can also tap the title instead.)

   

3. Swipe to the bottom of the description, and tap the Show transcript button. 

   

4. This will replace the description box with a transcript box, and you can scroll through the full text of the video.

   

I haven't found a way to copy the text out of the mobile app, unfortunately, but you'll get it on your screen.

Alternate ways to transcribe a YouTube video

While using YouTube's built-in transcript feature might be the fastest way to transcribe a video, it can be clunky to copy and almost definitely isn't fully accurate (because AI). Here are some other options to consider when YouTube's automatic transcript generator doesn't cut it.

Contact the content creator

Many content creators write scripts for their videos before they record them—however off the cuff they may seem. Depending on how accessible a creator is, you may be able to reach out and request a transcript directly. Worst case scenario, they say no.

Use third-party transcription services

There are plenty of transcription services available, many of which use AI. Some are free and some are… not free. Start by taking a look at Zapier's picks for the best transcription services.

How do YouTube transcripts work?

Unless the video publisher has uploaded their own transcript, YouTube defaults to an automatic caption generator. The transcript feature uses these automatically-generated captions to display the full text of the video. 

While it's an extremely handy tool, the accuracy can be lackluster. It has a hard time picking up muffled or unclear speech, so if complete accuracy is important, you may need to review the transcript line by line.

What you can do with YouTube transcripts

Although pretty much everybody uses YouTube, not everybody uses it in the same way. Here are some of the ways you can use a YouTube transcript: 

• If you host videos on your website in addition to YouTube, including a transcript can boost your SEO and GEO and aid comprehension for users. Pull the transcript from YouTube, and use it on your website too.

• Transcripts also make it easy to repurpose video content for blog articles, social media, and other text formats. Lots of AI marketing tools have features that turn YouTube links into fully fleshed-out blog posts automatically.

• Some folks just learn better by reading. If that's you, reading through a transcript instead of (or while) watching can help you internalize the content more.

Automatically transcribe YouTube videos with Zapier

Zapier's AI orchestration platform lets you connect YouTube with thousands of other apps, so you can automatically get transcripts—and then do something with them.

For example, you could create a workflow where every new YouTube video uploaded to your channel is automatically transcribed by AI, that transcript is rewritten into a blog article and LinkedIn post, and it's all stored in a Notion database alongside the video link. This kind of orchestration makes your content work for you across platforms without the need for constant manual effort.

Learn more about how to automate YouTube (like automatically uploading videos to YouTube from Google Drive, Discord, and other platforms), or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

YouTube transcript FAQ

Still have questions about how to transcribe a YouTube video? I've got answers.

How do I download a YouTube transcript as text?

YouTube doesn't allow users to directly download transcripts from the website or app. You'll need to copy the text yourself and paste it somewhere else (like Microsoft Word or Google Docs). From there, you can edit the transcript and download it in your chosen format. Alternatively, you can use Zapier to send YouTube videos to a transcription app for automatic transcription.

Why do some YouTube videos not have transcripts?

While YouTube should automatically generate transcripts for videos, content without speech (like music with no vocals) won't give you the option. In other cases, unclear or distorted speech can result in an incomplete transcript. 

How do I copy a transcript from YouTube without timestamps?

On desktop, you can toggle timestamps on or off after you hit the Show transcript button. Click the three little dots in the top-right corner of the transcript box, and the option will pop up. (Note: you can't remove timestamps on YouTube's mobile app.)

Related reading:

• YouTube marketing: tips, tricks, and strategies

• The best free video editing software

• The YouTube metrics you should focus on

• How to create video scripts from blog posts with ChatGPT

This article was originally published in April 2024. The most recent update was in October 2025.

Everyone seems to find themselves fumbling with hyperlinks in Slack, but it's almost magic how easy it is. There are two main ways to do it.

Table of contents:

• How to hyperlink in Slack with a keyboard shortcut

• How to add a Slack hyperlink and see the URL

• How to add a Slack Markdown link

• The case for not hyperlinking

• Automate Slack with Zapier

• Slack hyperlink FAQs

How to hyperlink in Slack with a keyboard shortcut

1. Copy the URL you want to link to.

2. Highlight the text you want to hyperlink.

3. Type Ctrl + V on Windows or command + V on Mac.

That's it: the text will hyperlink. It seems like a small thing—cutting out a click or two—but when you spend your day adding links to Slack, it adds up. When Zapier customer champion Michelle Poterek shared this insight in an internal blog post, the people went wild for it.

Who knew creating a link in Slack would be such a party?

How to add a Slack hyperlink and see the URL

If you want to see the URL you're adding to be sure you're not accidentally pasting a link to your dog-cave Pinterest board, you can still use a keyboard shortcut—it's just a couple more keystrokes and one extra click.

1. Copy the URL you want to link to.

2. Highlight the text you want to hyperlink.

3. Type command + shift + U on Mac or Ctrl + Shift + U on Windows. (You can also just click the link icon right above the message field, but why do that when you can use a shortcut?)

4. The hyperlink box will pop up: paste the link in the Link field, and click Save.

How to add a Slack Markdown link

Until I worked at Zapier, I'd never even heard of Markdown. Now, half the people I work with prefer writing in it—and Slack supports it. To add a link using Markdown:

1. First, you need to make sure you have the setting enabled. Go to Preferences by clicking the name of your workspace, and selecting Preferences, or by using the shortcut Ctrl + , or command + ,.

2. Click the Advanced tab, and check the box next to Format messages with markup.

   

3. Type your hyperlink in Markdown format, which is [anchor text](URL). For example: [I dare you to click this!](https://sketchywebsite.com).

4. Hit Enter or return, or click the send button. (Confusingly, it won't render as a hyperlink in the text box, but once you send it, it'll be hyperlinked.)

   

One thing to keep in mind. Once you enable the markup setting, you won't be able to add hyperlinks (or much else) the normal way. So only check that box if you live and breathe Markdown.

The case for not hyperlinking

Now you know how to create a Slack link—but should you?

I much prefer when people just drop the full URL somewhere in their Slack message. When there's a hyperlink, I find myself hovering over it to see what I'm about to click on.

So far, I haven't been trolled by a Slack hyperlink, but it's worth keeping in mind.

Automate Slack with Zapier

A semi-magical keyboard shortcut is one thing, but when you connect Slack with Zapier, you can turn Slack into an AI-orchestrated command center, where messages can trigger complex workflows across your entire tech stack. For example, Zapier can detect a critical incident report in Slack, use AI to classify severity, auto-create a Jira ticket, spin up a dedicated Slack channel, and post AI-generated summaries to stakeholders.

Learn more about how to automate Slack, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Slack hyperlink FAQs

For something so simple, there are still questions to answer.

Why is my Slack Markdown link not working?

If your Slack Markdown link isn't working, it's probably because you don't have the checkbox checked. Go to Preferences > Advanced, and check the box next to Format messages with markup. Then try again, and it should work. (Just keep in mind that it prevents you from adding hyperlinks the regular way.)

Can you add a Slack hyperlink on mobile?

Yes! You can hyperlink on mobile by typing your anchor text, highlighting it how you normally would on your phone, and then tapping the hyperlink icon. You'll get a pop-up to add the link—click Save, and you're done.

Why can't I see the hyperlink option in Slack?

If you can't see the link icon above the message field, and using the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + V or command + V) isn't working, it's possible you have markup enabled. To disable it, go to Preferences > Advanced, and uncheck the box next to Format messages with markup. When you go back to the message field, you should see the link option, along with all the other formatting options.

Related content:

• The best automations for Slack users

• How to delete Slack messages

• How to survive on a Slack that's way too busy

• How to customize your Slack sidebar

• 6 examples of Slack workflows to automate your business

• How to send a GIF in Slack

This article was originally published in March 2022. The most recent update was in October 2025.

Claude powers Amazon's new Alexa+ experience, autonomously resolves millions of customer support tickets via Intercom, and helps users build sophisticated apps through platforms like Cursor and Replit. It sits at the center of the "vibe coding" movement, where non-coders create apps just by chatting with AI, and has devoted fans who praise its surprisingly effective therapy-like conversation skills.

And yet, on paper, Claude seems limited compared to rivals. It can't generate images or videos, it's often months behind on features, and it doesn't have any impressive context windows.

What, then, explains Claude's popularity with consumers and enterprise brands alike? Why are major companies and everyday users turning to an AI that, by many metrics, offers less? In this article, I'll explore what makes Claude a powerhouse in enterprise AI and a favorite among professionals who need depth over breadth.

Table of contents:

• What is Claude?

• What makes Claude great?

• How to try Claude for yourself

• Automate Claude with Zapier

What is Claude?

Claude is a family of large language models (LLMs) developed by Anthropic, a company founded by former OpenAI researchers. Unlike competitors that aim to be all-in-one assistants, Claude prioritizes deep reasoning and specialized capabilities like code generation.

Claude is also the name of the AI chatbot built on top of these models.

Claude's model family: Sonnet, Haiku, Opus

Anthropic offers three main model variants (the most recent of which was released in September 2025), each with different performance characteristics and price points.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is now considered by Anthropic to be the best model for coding and the best model for all-around performance. Opus still has an edge on the most complex tasks, but at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens, Sonnet is the best default model for most users due to its balance of performance and cost.

Claude Opus 4.1 is still preferred by many developers for complex coding tasks and is also well-suited to research and enterprise applications that need maximum performance. At $15 per million input tokens and $75 per million output tokens, it's pricey, so it's best for complex tasks where accuracy is more important than speed or cost.

Claude Haiku 3.5 is optimized for speed and affordability. It costs just $0.80 per million input tokens and $4 per million output tokens. The current version was released in October 2024 and hasn't gotten an update since, but it's still a solid choice when cost and time are your most important factors.

Claude API pricing

What makes Claude great?

Claude is best for use cases like coding, deep reasoning, nuanced content creation, and privacy-focused enterprise applications. Here are the features that help Claude stand out.

Artifacts

Claude's Artifacts feature creates persistent, editable content that you can reference and update throughout a conversation or project. This might include interactive elements like shareable notes, code snippets, charts, small apps, or calculators. 

Since Claude has access to the web, you can ask it to source information and create an interactive artifact in one shot. Want to compare how different investing styles performed over a specific timeframe? Claude can find the answer, create an interactive chart, and include different ways to view the data.

With Artifacts, you can create anything from AI-generated mini-games and data visualizations to productivity apps like interactive FAQs or workflow calculators.

You might be surprised how useful this is for satisfying your everyday curiosity. Seriously: download the Claude app, ask Claude to generate data visualizations for random questions, and see what happens. It still blows my mind that from the comfort of my couch, I can ask Claude for "an interactive visualization showing which countries export the most bananas per capita" and get a masterpiece like the chart below.

But React-powered interactive charts and graphs are just the start. Anthropic now allows you to create AI-powered artifacts and share them publicly without worrying about blowing up your API budget, since users have to authenticate with their Claude account and are responsible for their own usage. 

That means it's easier than ever to create a Claude-hosted app for team productivity, language learning, or goofy multiplayer games.

Advanced coding skills

Claude is wildly popular for coding among developers and enterprises. Even before the release of Sonnet 4.5, Claude was firmly in the lead in enterprise AI markets with 42% coding market share (a big reversal from 2023, when OpenAI had a 50% market share).

So what changes with Sonnet 4.5? The big story is how autonomous Sonnet 4.5 is when dealing with complex multi-step coding challenges. According to Anthropic, Sonnet 4.5 can work autonomously for as long as 30 hours on complex tasks. It also features improvements in accuracy, debugging, multi-step reasoning, and managing tasks across multiple codebases.

Claude has also made Claude Code, its agentic coding tool, easier to access. It's now included in all Pro plans, and in August 2025, organizations on Team and Enterprise plans got access to Claude Code too. This has big implications for Claude's usefulness, particularly within organizations. As Kieran Klaassen, general manager of Cora, an email app, said in July 2025: "Every piece of code I've shipped in the last two months was written by AI. Not assisted by AI. Written by AI… Claude Code is the first tool that makes everyday coding genuinely optional."

Whether you're a coding hobbyist or a big tech developer, Claude should probably be your AI coding tool of choice.

Research and extended thinking mode

All of the leading LLMs now have some form of "deep thinking" mode. Claude offers two variations: research and extended thinking mode.

Like ChatGPT's Deep Research, Claude's Research feature looks through dozens (and often hundreds) of sources to create comprehensive reports addressing nuanced requests. For example, I asked Claude to do a comprehensive review of Alaska Inner Passage cruise options, specified a few parameters, and got a thoroughly-researched recommendation in under six minutes.

Extended thinking mode, on the other hand, isn't intended for ultra-comprehensive research reports. Instead, it employs a kind of "hybrid reasoning" approach that lets the AI either respond almost instantly or take time to reason step-by-step before answering. 

In my testing, extended thinking mode has become less self-questioning over time. When I asked an earlier Claude model, Sonnet 3.7, to figure out how many basketballs fit inside a 747 airplane, it stopped no less than three times to check its math, revise its assumptions, and redo its calculations. For me, observing this process built trust: it was helpful to see why certain approaches were discarded and why the final answer was the most logical.

Now, with Sonnet 4.5, Claude simply takes a few seconds to outline its thought process before confidently giving an answer. When you read through the Thought process box, it's almost as if Claude is acting as a highly-qualified expert prompting itself. I still think it adds helpful context, though, since you can see implicit assumptions that don't always make it into the final answer.

Projects

Claude's Projects feature isn't as groundbreaking now as when it first came out—ChatGPT now offers something similar—but it's still super helpful. With Projects, you get consistent, tailored responses across interactions without constant re-prompting.

For example, let's say you use Claude to write captions for your business's social media posts. Unless you copy and paste the same prompt and include detailed instructions, you're likely to end up with a different brand voice and formatting each time. Projects lets you anchor all of your chat activity with the same instructions, while also uploading materials to a persistent file archive so Claude knows everything it needs to know about your business.

You can also use Claude Projects for personal use cases, like creating a personal tax advisor to review all your financials and make sure you don't miss any deductions.

Personality (a.k.a. "vibes")

No, personality isn't actually a feature. But you might be surprised at how often this comes up when people talk about why they use Claude. As Eric Simons, CEO and co-founder of StackBlitz, says: "Sonnet is just more fun and friendlier which goes a long way. It tries to empathize in a way that's not obviously robot fake."

While each new AI model inevitably benchmarks its performance against older models (now 5% better at math!), they're all incredibly powerful at this point, which means the subjective experience of interacting with them is a kind of X-factor that can tip the scales. This makes sense: if you're spending all day brainstorming with bots, you want the experience to be pleasant.

For me, Claude is hands down the best AI to have a conversation with. ChatGPT somehow sounds both robotic and overenthusiastic, and Grok has plenty of personality but goes a little overboard. Claude, on the other hand, manages to bring emotion to the conversation in a way that's believable.

Web search

Claude's competitors launched web search in mid-2024, which is basically a decade ago in the world of AI. But Claude finally caught up in March 2025.

While there's nothing revolutionary about Claude's take on web search, it's integrated seamlessly. As long as you keep the Web Search function toggled on, Claude automatically searches the web when needed based on the context of your query. Claude does a particularly good job of citing its sources: after each statistic, there's a clearly-labeled link you can follow so you can cross-check the information yourself.

How to try Claude for yourself

For access, sign up at Claude.ai. From there, you can start a conversation or use one of Claude's default prompts to get started. As a free user, you'll get access to Claude Sonnet 4.5, plus limited use of Opus 4.1. Upgrading to one of Claude's paid plans (starting at $20/month) gives you access to additional models (including Haiku 3.5) and priority access even during times of high traffic.

Automate Claude with Zapier

If you decide to use Claude as your AI chatbot of choice, you can connect it to Zapier, so you can initiate conversations in Claude whenever you take specific actions in your other apps. Build solutions in minutes and solve tough challenges with AI and automation. Learn more about how to automate Claude with Zapier, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Anthropic also developed the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standard that allows you to take action in other apps straight from Claude. With Zapier MCP, you can access your entire tech stack from Claude, no code required. Learn more about how to empower Claude to work across your apps with Zapier.

Related reading:

• What is Llama and why does it matter?

• What is Google Gemini?

• What is Sora? OpenAI's text-to-video model

• What is Perplexity AI?

• What are Claude computer use and OpenAI Operator?

This article was originally published in September 2023. The most recent update was in October 2025.

If you apply to Zapier, you may be invited to a recruiter screen with an AI agent.

We want you to know why.

Our Talent Acquisition (TA) team is experimenting with agentic recruiters—AI-powered screening conversations designed to help us manage high application volume while giving more candidates a chance to shine.

In keeping with Zapier's Default to Transparency value, we're sharing this for two reasons:

1. So candidates understand how this may shape their experience with us.

2. To contribute to the broader talent community dialogue on what's possible—and what requires guardrails—as recruiting evolves with AI.

The challenge: Volume, noise, and candidate experience

Job seekers are increasingly using AI to write their resumes and applications—and to send many more applications. On one hand, candidates can highlight skills more effectively. On the other hand, recruiters now face a flood of submissions that look strong on paper but often don't hold up in practice.

When we opened a recent software engineering role, we received several thousand applications in just 48 hours. Zapier commits to responding to every candidate within seven days. But at this scale, our recruiters would need to spend hundreds of hours on initial candidate interviews. We don't have the human bandwidth to do this, but we want to give every qualified candidate a chance to shine.

On top of applications per job growing beyond what we can manage conventionally, we're finding that up to 30% of applications are fraudulent. We've witnessed fake identities, unverifiable credentials, and misleading profiles. We even caught some deepfakes on live interviews! Our fraud alert systems are helpful, but every minute spent here takes time away from genuine candidates. We want to ensure our focus stays on people who could truly thrive at Zapier.

Our experiment: Bringing the power of AI into the first interview

To address these challenges, we're going to start our experiment to pilot agentic recruiter screens this fall. We'll test this approach with a small number of roles, primarily software engineering, where we have the highest volume of applications.

Here's how it works:

• After an initial application review by a member of our team, significantly more candidates can now move forward to a 15–20 minute AI-led screening call.

• The AI recruiter asks the same structured questions our human recruiters would, with smart follow-ups tailored to our criteria.

• Candidates can complete their interview at their convenience, making interviewing with Zapier more flexible and accessible.

• Afterward, AI helps summarize responses against our rubric, and a human Zapier recruiter reviews the notes, transcript, and recording—alongside your application. That same human recruiter makes the final decision on whether to move the candidate forward.

Your experience as a candidate

Participation is completely optional. If you'd prefer not to participate, you can opt out with no impact on your candidacy; we'll review your application as usual.

That said, we believe there are real benefits to participating:

• A chance to tell your story—because we're not limited to the handful who look "perfect" on paper.

• Flexibility to schedule on your own terms and in your time zone.

• Confidence that your candidacy will always be reviewed by a real recruiter, not an algorithm.

• Transparency into how we're testing and refining the process.

For recruiters, this experiment means more time to build relationships with candidates who advance deeper into the interview process. This translates into more personal, tailored support from our team if you advance.

And this experiment reflects how Zapier operates as an AI-first company: always looking for ways to let computers do more, so humans can focus on what we do best—building meaningful connections and making thoughtful decisions.

Keeping humans at the center

Most importantly: AI does not make hiring decisions at Zapier. Our recruiters and hiring managers do.

The AI supports us by:

• Applying consistent criteria across hundreds of candidates, reducing the risk of unconscious bias.

• Focusing on the content of answers, not accents or speech patterns, thanks to safeguards we've built.

• Surfacing details busy humans might miss when screening dozens of candidates a day.

But the final call always rests with people. We use AI to amplify human judgment, not replace it.

The bigger picture

Zapier isn't alone in trying to shape the future of hiring. Across industries, companies are exploring AI in recruiting, while researchers remind us of the risks if these tools aren't applied with care. We believe AI can transform hiring—but only when paired with strong guardrails. Our approach is simple: experiment thoughtfully, learn openly, and keep people at the center.

Looking ahead, the future of talent acquisition will rely on human judgment amplified by AI precision. AI isn't replacing recruiters—in fact, we've recently added recruiters to our team. Instead, we see AI as a tool that frees recruiters to focus on what matters most: connecting with candidates who are the best fit.

This is just the beginning of our journey. We know the use of AI in recruiting will shape the candidate experience in different ways—some will see it as an exciting signal of innovation, others may find it less personal. Either way, we'll continue to share what we learn and invite feedback from candidates and the broader TA community. Because ultimately, improving hiring isn't just about moving faster—it's about building fair, human experiences that lead to the right match.

Granola works differently from the typical AI meeting assistants you see on most calls these days, the ones that invite a virtual note-taking attendee. Instead, Granola records audio locally on your machine, then pairs that transcript with an AI-generated summary and the notes you type during the meeting. By incorporating your own notes into the AI-generated content, it surfaces the points you actually care about rather than guessing at what's most relevant.

Because every Granola note is stored as a plain text file, when you connect the app with Zapier, you're free to auto-move that file anywhere. In the sections that follow, I'll show you how to extend Granola's capabilities with Zapier. Let's get started.

Skip ahead

• Keep your meeting notes organized

• Share notes with your team

• Turn notes into tasks and follow-ups

• Keep your CRM up to date

Keep your meeting notes organized

Granola makes it easy to generate clear, reliable notes after every meeting. But if those notes stay in Granola, and you don't make a habit of reviewing them, they can easily get lost. With Zapier, you can automatically route new notes into the tools you already use, like Google Docs or Airtable.

I use an AI notetaker for all my meetings, and while it's great to have a transcript waiting afterward, it can be a little annoying to log in and hunt down the notes each time. I usually end up copying and pasting them into a Google Doc just to keep everything in one place. Automating that step means the notes are already where I expect them to be without me having to do anything.

Whether you prefer a spreadsheet, a shared drive, a Google Doc, or a database, Zapier ensures your notes are automatically sent there, so you can focus on acting on the results of the call instead of copying text.

Instantly share notes with your team

One of the easiest ways to get value from Granola is to make sure your meeting notes are seen by the right people. With Zapier, you can automatically share Granola notes to tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or email. This way, the team is notified instantly rather than having to search manually through Granola records or waiting for you to send out a recap.

This makes it simple to keep everyone aligned. A client call can be shared with your account managers in Slack, or an internal sync can be routed to your team's email list so everybody has a record of what was discussed—even if they weren't able to attend in real-time. Whether it's a quick share to a group channel or a direct message to a teammate, Zapier helps ensure nothing gets lost after the meeting ends.

You could even layer in an AI step to refine what gets shared. Instead of sending the full note, you might have AI highlight only next steps or pull out specific client updates before posting them. That way, your team receives just the context they need rather than the full note.

Automatically turn notes into tasks and follow-ups

Meeting notes are only as valuable as the actions that come out of them. Granola captures everything that was said, and Zapier can take the next step by turning those insights into tasks in your project management tools. That way, action items don't just sit in a note in Granola. Instead, they automatically show up where you and your team already track your work and tasks.

For example, a client call might generate three follow-ups: sending a proposal, updating a timeline, and booking the next meeting. Instead of copying those into Asana or ClickUp yourself, Zapier can automatically create the tasks. This helps you close the loop on meetings more efficiently.

Keep your CRM up to date

In general, the more timely data you're able to add to your CRM, the better. A complete CRM record is only possible when every call, demo, and follow-up chat is logged in real time. By connecting Granola to Zapier, you can push fresh notes straight into HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive, or Keap the moment they're captured. With this setup, your team can rely on a single source of truth rather than chasing details across multiple systems.

Because these automations run in the background, you never have to wonder whether the last discovery call made it onto the correct contact record. Zapier can even look up the specific deal or contact first, so the note lands in exactly the right place. Sales reps see the latest conversation history before their next call, and managers get more reliable reporting without chasing people for updates.

Want to avoid pasting an entire transcript into your CRM? Add an AI step to generate a summary or extract the next steps. That way, the CRM stays tidy with just the highlights, and you can link to the whole note in Granola for deeper reference whenever you need it.

Manage your Granola meeting notes on autopilot with Zapier

Granola already makes it easy to capture meeting notes, and pairing it with Zapier unlocks even more value. With just a handful of automations, Zapier files each note where you'll actually look for it, no matter what app you use.

And that's just the start of what you can do with Granola and Zapier. What will you automate first?

Large language models (LLMs) are the main kind of text-handling AIs. ChatGPT, Google's AI answers, and Apple Intelligence are just a tiny handful of the apps that rely on them. If something has a chatbot or some kind of text generator or text summarization built in, it almost certainly uses an LLM.

LLMs have been studied in research labs since the late 2010s, but after the release of ChatGPT (which showcased the power of GPT), they've burst out of the lab and into the real world.

We're now a few years into the widespread availability of LLMs, and with that, they're increasingly useful and powerful. Reasoning models that take extra time to work through hard problems and large multimodal models (LMMs), which are able to handle other input and output modalities, like images, audio, and video, as well as text, are two of the biggest developments. Of course, the rapid pace of AI complicates things even more. So here, I'll break down some of the most important LLMs, LMMs, and reasoning models on the scene right now.

Table of contents:

• The best LLMs

• What is an LLM?

• What is an open source LLM?

• How do LLMs work?

• What are reasoning models?

• What can LLMs be used for?

• Why are there so many LLMs?

• What to expect from LLMs in the future

The best LLMs

There are dozens of major LLMs, and hundreds that are arguably significant for some reason or other. Listing them all would be nearly impossible, and in any case, it would be out of date within days because of how quickly LLMs are being developed.

(I'm updating this list now for the first time in a few months and I have to make some pretty significant changes to add new models, update existing ones, and remove others that are now out of date.)

Take the word "best" with a grain of salt here: I've tried to narrow things down by offering a list of the most significant, interesting, and popular models, not necessarily the ones that outperform on benchmarks (though most of these do). I've also mostly focused on LLMs, LMMs, and reasoning models that you can actually use—rather than ones that are the subjects of super interesting research papers or just teased in marketing materials—since we like to keep things practical around here.

Click on any app in the list below to learn more about it.

What is an LLM?

An LLM, or large language model, is a general-purpose AI text generator. It's what's behind the scenes of all AI chatbots, AI writing generators, and most other AI-powered features like summarized search answers.

Stripped of fancy interfaces and other workarounds, LLMs take a prompt and generate an answer. The chatbots built on top of LLMs aren't looking for keywords so they can answer with a canned response—instead, they're doing their best to understand what's being asked and reply appropriately.

This is why LLMs have really taken off: the same models (with or without a bit of extra training) can be used to respond to customer queries, write marketing materials, summarize meeting notes, and do a whole lot more.

But LLMs can only work with text, which is why LMMs are increasingly popular: they can incorporate images, handwritten notes, audio, video, and more. Many of the biggest models are now LMMs.

What is an open source LLM?

There are three major categories of LLM: proprietary, open, and open source.

Proprietary models like GPT-5 and Claude 4 are some of the most popular and powerful models available, but they're developed and operated by private companies. The source code, training strategies, model weights, and even details like the number of parameters they have are all kept secret. The only ways to access these models are through a chatbot or app built with them, or through an API. You can't just run GPT-5 on your own server.

Open and open source models are more freely available. You can download Llama 4, gpt-oss-20b, Gemma 3, and DeepSeek R1 from Hugging Face and other model platforms and run them on your own devices—and even re-train them with your own data to create your own model. They're also available from multiple third-party API providers so developers can build their own chatbots and apps on top of them. You can dig deep into things like the model weights and system architecture to understand how they work (as best as anyone can).

So what's the difference between open and open source? Well, companies like Meta and Google say that Llama 4 and Gemma 3 are open as though it's the same as open source, but there's a major distinction.

Open source licenses are incredibly permissive. Mostly, you have to agree to make anything you build with it open source as well—and give attribution to the original developers. If you want to build a multi-billion dollar company off open source software or create a crime chatbot that tells people how to rob a bank, you're absolutely free to do so. The police might have some issues with the latter project, but you wouldn't be breaking any software licenses. 

Open licenses are still permissive, but they have some additional limits. For example, Llama 4's license allows commercial use up to 700 million monthly users and blocks certain uses. You or I could build something with it, but Apple and Google can't. Similarly, Gemma 3's prohibited use policy, among other things, bans "facilitating or encouraging users to commit any type of crimes." Understandably, Google doesn't want to see unsavory bots "powered by Google Gemma" plastered all over the news.

How do LLMs work?

Early LLMs, like GPT-1, would fall apart and start to generate nonsense after a few sentences, but today's LLMs, like GPT-5, can generate thousands of words that all make sense.

To get to this point, LLMs were trained on huge corpuses of data. The specifics vary a little bit between the different LLMs—depending on how careful the developers are to fully acquire the rights to the materials they're using—but as a general rule, you can assume that they've been trained on something like the entire public internet, every book, newspaper, and magazine that's ever been published, and the synthetic output of earlier AI models at a bare minimum. This is why LLMs can generate text that sounds so authoritative on such a wide variety of subjects.

From this training data, LLMs are able to model the relationship between different words (or really, fractions of words called tokens) using high-dimensional vectors. This is all where things get very complicated and mathy, but the basics are that every individual token ends up with a unique ID and that similar concepts are grouped together. This is then used to generate a neural network, a kind of multi-layered algorithm based on how the human brain works—and that's at the core of every LLM. 

The neural network has an input layer, an output layer, and multiple hidden layers, each with multiple nodes. It's these nodes that compute what words should follow on from the input, and different nodes have different weights. For example, if the input string contains the word "Apple," the neural network will have to decide to follow up with something like "Mac" or "iPad," something like "pie" or "crumble," something like "by Charli XCX," or something else entirely. When we talk about how many parameters an LLM has, we're basically comparing how many layers and nodes there are in the underlying neural network. In general, the more nodes, the more complex the text a model is able to understand and generate—though many LLMs use a mixture-of-experts architecture, which makes straight comparisons based on size impossible.

LMMs are even more complex because they also have to incorporate data from additional modalities, but they're typically trained and structured in much the same way.

Of course, an AI model trained on the open internet with little to no direction sounds like the stuff of nightmares. And it probably wouldn't be very useful either, so at this point, LLMs undergo further training and fine-tuning to guide them toward generating safe and useful responses. One of the major ways this works is by adjusting the weights of the inputs and outputs of different nodes, though there are other aspects of it too.

All this is to say that while LLMs are black boxes, what's going on inside them isn't magic. Once you understand a little about how they work, it's easy to see why they're so good at answering certain kinds of questions. It's also easy to understand why they tend to make up (or hallucinate) random things.

What are reasoning models?

Reasoning models like OpenAI o3 and DeepSeek R1 are LLMs that are trained to generate a response using Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning. 

When they're given a prompt, instead of replying as quickly as possible, they break the problem down into multiple simple steps and attempt to work through them. If they encounter issues, they can reassess and approach problems from a different angle.  

This kind of reasoning requires more computing resources, but it tends to lead to more powerful AI models. 

What can LLMs be used for?

LLMs are powerful mostly because they're able to be generalized to so many different situations and uses. The same core LLM (sometimes with a bit of fine-tuning) can be used to do dozens of different tasks. While everything they do is based around generating text, the specific ways they're prompted to do it changes what features they appear to have. 

Here are some of the tasks LLMs are commonly used for:

• General-purpose chatbots (like ChatGPT and Google Gemini)

• Summarizing search results and other information from around the web

• Customer service chatbots that are trained on your business's docs and data

• Translating text from one language to another

• Converting text into computer code, or one language into another

• Generating social media posts, blog posts, and other marketing copy

• Sentiment analysis

• Moderating content

• Correcting and editing writing

• Data analysis

And hundreds of other things. We're still in the early days of the current AI revolution.

But there are also plenty of things that LLMs can't do, but that other kinds of AI models can. A few examples:

• Interpret images

• Generate images

• Convert files between different formats

• Create charts and graphs

• Perform math and other logical operations

Of course, some LLMs and chatbots appear to do some of these things. But in most cases, there's another AI service stepping in to assist—or you're actually using an LMM.

With all that context, let's move on to the LLMs themselves.

The best LLMs

GPT-5

• Developer: OpenAI

• Parameters: Unknown, but likely in the hundreds of billions

• Context window: 400,000

• Access: API, chatbot

OpenAI's Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) models kickstarted the latest AI hype cycle. GPT-5, the company's latest flagship model (here's a list of all the OpenAI models), is both multimodal and capable of reasoning. It aims to combine all the features of GPT-4o and o3 into a single model. It can work with text, images, audio, and video.

GPT-5 is available through ChatGPT and as an API for developers. As a reasoning model, the options available through the API can get complicated as you have to set how much effort the model can expend to work through difficult problems as well as select whether to use the full model, or the nano or mini versions.

You can pull the power of GPT-5 and other OpenAI models into your work by connecting them to Zapier, making AI a core part of complex, multi-step workflows across your enterprise tech stack. For example, you can route customer support tickets from Zendesk into ChatGPT for summarization and sentiment analysis, then automatically log structured insights in Salesforce and trigger a Slack alert for high-priority cases. Learn more about how to automate ChatGPT, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

gpt-oss

• Developer: OpenAI

• Parameters: 21 billion, 117 billion (as mixtures-of-experts)

• Context window: 128,000

• Access: Open

OpenAI also has a state-of-the art open LLM. gpt-oss-20b and gpt-oss-120b are both open reasoning models that were trained using the same techniques as OpenAI's other models like o3 and GPT-4o.

Anyone can download, fine-tune, and use these models for almost any purpose (though OpenAI has taken steps to limit the ways they can be used for malicious purposes or to generate harmful information). This is a big deal because since 2019, all of OpenAI's models have been proprietary.

GPT-4o

• Developer: OpenAI

• Parameters: More than 175 billion

• Context window: 128,000

• Access: API, chatbot

While GPT-5 has superseded GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini, the two models are still available through the API. GPT-4o is also available through ChatGPT for paid users who prefer the older model. 

In the interests of keeping this list manageable, I'm going to lump GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano in here too. They're technically OpenAI's best non-reasoning models, but GPT-4o remains far more widespread and GPT-5 is now the flagship model, so they fall into a weird middle ground.

o3 and o3-mini

• Developer: OpenAI

• Parameters: More than 175 billion

• Context window: 200,000

• Access: API

o3 and o3-mini have been superseded by GPT-5. They're still available through the API and still deployed in some apps, so I'm keeping them on this list for now, but they're likely to be deprecated in the coming months. 

Gemini 

• Developer: Google

• Parameters: Unknown

• Context window: Up to 2 million

• Access: API, chatbot

Google Gemini is a family of AI models from Google. The main models—Gemini 2.5 Pro, Gemini 2.5 Flash, and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite—are designed to operate on different devices, from smartphones to dedicated servers, and cover a wide variety of uses.

While capable of generating text like an LLM, the Gemini models are also natively able to handle images, audio, video, code, and other kinds of information. They're optimized for a long context window, which means they can process larger volumes of text.

The latest models also power AI features throughout Google's apps, like Docs and Gmail, as well as Google's chatbot, which is confusingly also called Gemini. Google's Gemini models are available to developers through Google AI Studio or Vertex AI.

With Zapier's Google Vertex AI and Google AI Studio integrations, you can access Gemini from all the apps you use at work. Here are a few examples to get you started, or you can learn more about how to automate Google AI Studio.

Gemma

• Developer: Google

• Parameters: 270 million, 1 billion, 4 billion, 12 billion, and 27 billion

• Context window: 128,000

• Access: Open

Google Gemma is a family of open AI models from Google based on the same research and technology it used to develop Gemini. The latest version, Gemma 3, is available in five sizes: 270 million, 1 billion, 4 billion, 12 billion, and 27 billion parameters. There is also a version called Gemma 3n designed for mobile architectures.

Llama

• Developer: Meta

• Parameters: 109 billion, 400 billion, 2 trillion (all as mixtures-of-experts)

• Context window: 10 million

• Access: Open

Llama is a family of open LLMs from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The newest Llama 4 models (including Scout, Maverick, and Behemoth [in preview]) are multimodal and use a mixture-of-experts structure. Scout has a 10M context window, which is bigger than anything else available at the moment.

In addition to powering most AI features throughout Meta's apps, the Llama "herd" is one of the most popular and powerful open LLM families, and you can download the source code yourself from GitHub. Because it's free for research and commercial uses, a lot of other LLMs use a Llama model as a base.

R1

• Developer: DeepSeek 

• Parameters: 671 billion (as a mixture-of-experts)

• Context window: 128,000

• Access: Open, chatbot, API

DeepSeek R1 caused a major stir when it launched as it was the first state-of-the-art reasoning model developed by a Chinese tech company. It was created on more limited computer hardware with a far smaller budget and released as an open model. 

R1 has been continually updated since launch, though it looks like it will soon be deprecated in favor of DeepSeek V3.1.

V3.1

• Developer: DeepSeek 

• Parameters: 671 billion

• Context window: 128,000

• Access: Open, chatbot, API

DeepSeek V3.1 is DeepSeek's equivalent of GPT-5. It's a state-of-the-art open LLM that can optionally reason, although it doesn't have any multimodal features. It now offers more powerful reasoning features than R1. It was also developed using more limited computer hardware and for less financial investment than typical LLMs.

Claude

• Developer: Anthropic

• Parameters: Unknown 

• Context window: 200,000

• Access: API, chatbot

Claude is arguably one of the most important competitors to GPT. Its three hybrid reasoning models—Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude 3.5 Haiku, and Claude Opus 4.1—are designed to be helpful, honest, harmless, and crucially, safe for enterprise customers to use. As a result, companies like Slack, Notion, and Zoom have all partnered with Anthropic. Claude Sonnet 4.5 is now considered one of the best AI coding models available.

Like all the other proprietary LLMs, Claude is only available as an API or through its official chatbot and other products, though it can be further trained on your data and fine-tuned to respond how you need.

And when you connect Claude to Zapier, you can embed advanced AI directly into your enterprise workflows. For example, you can have Claude analyze long-form research reports stored in Google Drive, generate concise executive summaries, and automatically distribute them to stakeholders in Slack or Notion. Learn how to automate Claude, or get started quickly with one of these pre-built workflows.

Command

• Developer: Cohere 

• Parameters: Command R7B has 7 billion; the other models are unknown

• Context window: Up to 128,000

• Access: API

Like Claude, Cohere's Command models are designed for enterprise users. Command A Max, Command A Reasoning, Command R7B, Command R, and Command R+ offer an API and are optimized for retrieval augmented generation (RAG) so that organizations can have the model respond accurately to specific queries from employees and customers.

As a result, companies like Oracle, Accenture, Notion, and Salesforce use Cohere's models.

Nova

• Developer: Amazon 

• Parameters: Unknown

• Context window: Up to 1 million

• Access: API

Amazon Nova is a family of frontier models available on Amazon Web Services. Despite a slow start from Amazon, the current models—including Amazon Nova Premier, Pro, Lite, and Micro—perform competitively in a range of benchmarks. Given AWS's prominence in cloud computing, Amazon Nova models may end up proving popular.

Magistral

• Developer: Mistral

• Parameters: 24 billion for Magistral Small, unknown for Magistral Medium

• Context window: 128,000

• Access: API, chatbot, open weight 

Mistral is one of the largest European AI companies. Magistral is its latest family of frontier models and its first to support reasoning. Magistral Small is a 24 billion parameter open model while Magistral Medium is a larger and more powerful enterprise-focused model.

Qwen

• Developer: Alibaba Cloud 

• Parameters: 0.5 billion, 1.5 billion, 3 billion, 7 billion, 14 billion, 32 billion, 72 billion, 235 billion

• Context window: Up to 1 million

• Access: Open, API, chatbot

Qwen is a family of AI models from Chinese tech giant Alibaba. There are dozens of open models available across the different Qwen3 and Qwen2.5 families, including models tailored for vision, coding, math, and a million-token context window.

The highest performing model, Qwen3, matches or exceeds models like DeepSeek V3.1 and Claude 4 Sonnet across a wide range of benchmarks.

GLM-4.5

• Developer: Z.ai

• Parameters: 106 billion and 355 billion (as mixtures-of-experts)

• Context window: 128,000

• Access: Open, API, chatbot

GLM-4.5 and GLM-4.5-Air are Chinese AI developer Z.ai's flagship models. They both use a mixture-of-experts architecture, support reasoning, and are designed for agentic workflows. They are among the top performing open models.

Kimi K2

• Developer: Moonshot AI

• Parameters: 1 trillion (as a mixture-of-experts)

• Context window: Up to 256,000

• Access: Open, API, chatbot

Kimi K2 is Chinese AI developer Moonshot AI's flagship model. It uses a mixture-of-experts architecture, supports reasoning, and is designed for tool use and other agentic tasks. It is among the highest performing open models. 

Phi-3 and Phi-4

• Developer: Microsoft

• Parameters: 3.8 billion, 7 billion, and 14 billion

• Context window: Up to 128,000

• Access: Open 

Microsoft's Phi-3 family of small language models are optimized for performance at small size. The 3.8 billion parameter Mini, 7 billion parameter Small, 14 billion parameter Medium, and 14.7 billion parameter Phi-4 all outperform larger models on language tasks. There's now a reasoning model called Phi-4-mini-flash reasoning.

The models are available through Azure AI Studio, Hugging Face, and other open model platforms.

Grok

• Developer: xAI

• Parameters: Unknown

• Context window: 2 million

• Access: API, chatbot

Grok, an AI model and chatbot trained on data from X (formerly Twitter), originally didn't warrant a place on this list on its own merits. Grok 4, however, offers state-of-the-art performance and reasoning abilities. There's also a smaller version available called Grok 4 Fast.

Still, while its performance now matches other models, it mostly generates headlines because it was developed by xAI, the AI company founded by Elon Musk. (Read more in our comparison of Grok vs. ChatGPT.)

When you connect Grok to Zapier, you can make Grok a hands-on collaborator inside the rest of your tech stack. Zapier lets you trigger Grok from all the other apps you use at work, so you can bring the power of AI into all your software. Learn more about how to automate Grok, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Why are there so many LLMs?

Until a few years ago, LLMs were limited to research labs and tech demos at AI conferences. Now, they're powering countless apps and chatbots, and there are hundreds of different models available that you can run yourself (if you have the computer skills). How did we get here?

Well, there are a few factors in play. Some of the big ones are:

• With GPT-3 and ChatGPT, OpenAI demonstrated that AI research had reached the point where it could be used to build practical tools—so lots of other companies started doing the same. 

• LLMs take a lot of computing power to train, but it can be done in a matter of weeks or months. Innovations from Chinese companies have also shown that powerful models can be developed on limited hardware with clever innovations and optimizations.

• There are lots of open models that can be re-trained or adapted into new models without the need to develop a whole new model.

• There's a lot of money being thrown at AI companies, so there are big incentives for anyone with the skills and knowledge to develop any kind of LLM to do so.

• There's a bit of an arms race going on between American and Chinese companies.

What to expect from LLMs in the future

I think we're going to continue to see a lot of innovation and new LLMs in the near future. Open models from Chinese tech companies like DeepSeek are now incredibly competitive with closed models from American tech companies. Major tech companies like Apple, Amazon, IBM, Intel, and NVIDIA also have compelling reasons to continue developing their own LLMs, even if they're only used internally.

I also think we're going to continue to see more efficient LLMs tailored to run on smartphones and other lightweight devices. Google started this with Gemini Nano, and while Apple Intelligence has attracted some criticism, it still runs natively on edge computing devices. 

Other than that, who can tell? Three years ago, I definitely didn't think we'd have powerful AIs like ChatGPT available for free. Maybe in a few years, we'll have artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Related reading:

• The best AI productivity tools

• The best AI courses for beginners

• Claude vs. ChatGPT: What's the difference?

• How to use Claude Artifacts for data visualization

This article was originally published in January 2024. The most recent update was in October 2026.

My AI software subscriptions are a graveyard of good intentions, gathering digital dust while I keep telling myself I'll use them all…someday.

Companies are experiencing the same problem, but on an inconceivably larger scale. One study found that companies spend approximately $9,100 per employee on SaaS tools—and a good chunk of that is inevitably going toward AI tools. Multiply that by a couple thousand employees and you've got yourself a sum that could be mistaken for a phone number. 

So I asked my industry contacts and poked around Reddit threads to get to the bottom of wasted AI software spend: why it happens, the true costs behind it, and ways to prevent it. Here's what I discovered. 

Table of contents: 

• The AI tools graveyard: How it happens 

• The real cost of unused AI subscriptions

• 4 ways to prevent AI tool waste

The AI tools graveyard: How it happens

No company sets out to light money on fire. But with over 52% of software licenses going unused by teams, that's exactly what's happening. Here are three reasons why well-intentioned companies end up with AI graveyards. 

• Shiny object syndrome: Teams get excited about the latest AI tool and rush to buy without a clear plan. Finance signs off, IT provisions the accounts, and before anyone checks if people are actually using it, the subscription auto-renews. The result: overlapping tools that don't add up to real adoption, just more unused licenses.

• The pilot trap: A small pilot team loves a new AI tool, so leadership buys licenses for everyone. But without a deliberate AI strategy and coordinated rollout, what worked for five motivated early adopters rarely translates to company-wide success. Early champions move on, and new users never get past the basics. Multiply that across departments, and you've got redundant tools, unused seats, and mounting IT overhead.

• The integration bottleneck: New AI tools look smooth in a product demo, but plugging them into your tech stack is a different story. Before anyone can officially use it, IT needs to run security checks, set up permissions, and connect the tool to existing systems—a process that can take weeks or months. Meanwhile, teams find workarounds. The eager ones might manually copy and paste data between apps, using unsanctioned AI tools in the shadows. And those who've lost the glimmer in their eyes abandon the tool altogether and revert to their old processes, leaving another AI license behind. 

The real cost of unused AI subscriptions

When I first saw reports about how much money companies wasted on unused software last year, I thought the numbers had to be exaggerated. Then I checked Reddit, where folks weren't shocked at how high the number was—they were convinced it was too low.

The problem runs deeper than a line item in the budget. Every time employees are asked to try a tool that doesn't live up to the hype, it chips away at their trust in new technology. The next time IT or leadership rolls out a new AI platform, adoption slows because people are understandably wary.

Meanwhile, IT teams are sinking hours into troubleshooting and managing integrations for tools that only a handful of employees use. And finance teams are shuffling invoices for subscriptions no one even remembers approving. 

Aleksandr Adamenko, co-founder of Winday, told me how quickly the math adds up: 

"The company signed up 50 users for [an AI marketing tool], but only 15 regularly use it—monthly costs of $1,750 just sitting there."

Then there's the cost of implementing AI tools, which Aleksandr says can require over $10,000/month in DevOps resourcing.

But the steepest price isn't financial—it's opportunity. Every dollar locked into ghost subscriptions is a dollar that could fund tools employees actually need, like customer-facing AI assistants, forecasting models, or AI orchestration platforms that connect everything together. Instead, companies are left footing the bill for abandoned experiments while missing out on solutions that could meaningfully improve productivity.

4 ways to prevent AI tool waste 

After watching too many good intentions turn into expensive mistakes, I've come up with a few guardrails to prevent AI tool waste. It's not a foolproof system, but it catches most of the obvious traps that lead to abandoned subscriptions. 

1. Start with problems, not solutions

I've fallen into this trap myself: seeing a compelling product demo and immediately thinking about how we could fit it into existing workflows, rather than asking if we actually need it. 

The better approach is a little less glamorous but far more effective: identify your pain points, and work backward from there. Here are some talking points to help brainstorm with your team: 

• What parts of our work involve a lot of repetitive data entry or cleanup?

• Which types of projects take up the most time and resources to create?

• Where do we spend significant time pulling insights from documents, research, or meeting notes?

Use those pain points as your evaluation criteria. If a new AI tool doesn't solve at least one of them, it's probably not worth the license fee.

2. Connect your tools with Zapier 

One reason AI tools end up abandoned is that they live in silos. A team signs up for a shiny new platform, but if it doesn't talk to the systems people already use every day—for example, your CRM or project tracker—it quickly gets sidelined.

Zapier lets you connect thousands of apps together, so you can orchestrate multi-step workflows across systems and teams at scale. For example, instead of leaving your AI writing generator stranded in its own interface, you can set up a workflow where a marketing brief in Asana automatically kicks off an AI draft, routes it to Slack for review, and stores the final version in your asset library. This way, your AI tool becomes integral to how work gets done instead of being an isolated experiment. 

Explore Zapier's library of workflow automation templates for more inspiration, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

3. Build an AI adoption strategy

The biggest mistake organizations make is assuming that buying enterprise licenses means everyone will actually use them. Pilots often succeed because the original champion is motivated enough to push through friction. But scaling beyond that person requires more structure.

Before you sign a contract, identify at least five people beyond the original champion who will benefit from the tool. Then map out when and how they'll learn to use it. 

Zapier did a version of this when rolling out AI internally. Instead of a blanket rollout, they focused on department-specific use cases and tied training to real workflows, leading to a 97% adoption rate across the organization. 

Most importantly, decide upfront how you'll measure success. Maybe it's hours saved per week, processes automated, or fewer handoffs between teams. Pick a metric, track it over 90 days, and use that data to decide if the tool deserves a permanent spot in your stack.

4. Evaluate your tech stack regularly

Even the best-fit tools may not stay relevant forever. Watch for early signs of decline: usage numbers slipping month after month, or the original champions suddenly going quiet about the tool they once couldn't stop going on about. That's usually the beginning of the end.

The tricky part is avoiding the sunk cost trap. Just because you spent six months getting a tool set up doesn't mean you should keep paying for it if nobody's using it. Cut your losses, and redirect that budget toward tools that solve new problems that have been smouldering beneath the surface. 

When you do cancel, give vendors honest feedback about why it didn't work out. They appreciate the insight, and if you ever reconsider the tool later, you might even get better terms for being candid.

Related reading:

• AI integration: How to bring AI into your workflows

• AI in sales: Use cases to inspire smarter workflows

• How AI project management can boost productivity

• AIOps: What is it & how can you use it? 

If you want to really follow a publication, writer, or something else online and see everything they publish—not just what some social media algorithm throws your way—the best way to do it is with an RSS reader. 

RSS (it stands for Really Simple Syndication) has been around since the '90s, and it's a way for sites to publish a feed of all their content in a way that can be easily parsed and aggregated by RSS apps. Basically every website offers some kind of RSS feed, even if they don't advertise it. Although pretty much every podcast app relies on RSS, it's not as popular a format for text as it used to be. Still, RSS remains the absolute best way to combine stuff from loads of different places into one central app, where you can read everything without having to click around a bunch of sites or scroll through your social feeds. You just open your RSS app and get reading, with every article and blog post presented in reverse chronological order.

While it's still traditional to bemoan the death of Google Reader all the way back in 2013 in any article about RSS, I'll skip the eulogy. The world of RSS apps has moved on and, over a decade later, is actually in a much better place than it likely would have been if Google had remained at the top. My picks for the best RSS readers are far nicer than Reader ever was. (So take those rose-tinted Google Goggles off.)

The 3 best RSS reader apps

• Feedly for the best all-around free RSS feed reader

• NewsBlur for filtering your RSS feeds

• Inoreader for the best free RSS reader with search and archiving

What makes a great RSS feed reader?

As a tech writer, I rely on my RSS app to keep me up to date on what's going on. I follow a few dozen tech sites, but it's also really great for following blogs that only publish a few times a year. It means I don't have to constantly check and see if Derek Sivers or Tynan has published a new post—it just pops up in my feeds. 

Good RSS services have a weirdly challenging job: they have to gather content from loads of different places and display it for you, all while getting out of the way as much as possible. You don't want to have to deal with weird interface quirks or even really interact with your reader app—it's all about seamlessly browsing the content you want to see.

Thankfully, as it's a decades-old standard, there are a few great apps that have thoroughly cracked this problem. They're all polished, easy to use, and put the content you want to read front and center. In addition to that must-have, I required all the apps on this list to be:

• Free. As a vestige of an older, more open internet era, you don't have to pay to get a premium experience. Each featured app has, at the very least, a great free plan that's sufficient for many users. Paying may get you no ads, more features, and an improved experience, but it isn't essential.

• Web apps. A web-based news feed reader lets you read content online using any device just by visiting a site. If you're used to reading things in your browser, it's the most natural experience. Most of these apps can also work with popular native RSS apps that sync feeds directly to your device, but that wasn't required for inclusion. (Here's our list of the best RSS readers for Mac, and if you want a quick Windows recommendation, check out Fluent Reader.)

• Traditional. RSS readers have a long history. Traditionally, they do two things: display content in reverse chronological order and allow you to curate the content you want to read. I excluded any apps that default to an algorithm to determine the order in which posts are displayed (e.g., popular posts displayed first), and I also excluded tools better described as content discovery platforms (e.g., Flipboard).

• Full text. When creating an RSS feed, publishers elect to show either a preview of their content or the entire article, so it's not always possible for RSS readers to display articles in their entirety. But for sites that provide the full text, RSS readers should display the entire article. I eliminated any apps that placed access to full text—when made available by the publisher—behind a premium plan paywall.

• Easy to use. One of the major goals of using an RSS aggregator is to simplify the process of seeing content from multiple sites. The apps I chose make it easy to perform basic RSS app functions like following your favorite sites, organizing your feeds into meaningful categories, saving articles, and marking articles as read. In short, they had to be nice to use.

I've been using RSS readers for almost two decades, so suffice it to say, I have strong opinions about what makes a good one. I started with a list of more than 20 apps that purported to be RSS readers (quite a few weren't) and checked to see if they met my basic criteria. Some of them didn't, had been discontinued, or hadn't been updated in the last few years. (RSS readers aren't exactly the most exciting or lucrative app category, so most of the popular apps have been around since Google Reader was killed.)

For the apps that met the criteria, I imported my list of subscribed feeds (when they weren't already there; I've tried most RSS readers in the past). I've been keeping this article up-to-date for a few years now, so they've each been thoroughly tested multiple times. After using each one over the course of a week, these are the clear winners.

The best free RSS readers at a glance

Best all-around free RSS feed reader

Feedly (Web, iOS, Android)

Feedly pros:

• Free plan is sufficient for most people's RSS needs 

• Great mobile apps for reading on the go—plus it integrates with almost every feed reading app you could want 

Feedly cons:

• I'm not a fan of the sponsored ads

Feedly is the industry standard for web-based RSS readers, and has been for over a decade. It's not hard to see why—its clean and simple interface is a great solution for both casual readers who just want to see all of their websites in one place and power users who want to take advantage of every feature RSS apps have to offer.

Feedly's free plan offers most of the features casual readers need. Follow up to 100 sources, sort the sites you follow into three folders, watch YouTube videos, and read full-text articles (when available) in a distraction-free, minimalist view. Plus, Feedly offers mobile apps for Android and iOS devices, so you can access subscriptions easily both at home and on the go.

But Feedly is also incredibly scalable, giving you the tools you need to do more than just curate and aggregate content. Upgrade to the Pro or Pro+ plan to search your feeds, follow newsletters alongside your subscriptions, add notes to content, and highlight important passages.

There are even AI-powered features that can pull in or exclude articles that match a particular criterion from your feeds (or the other publications Feedly follows), summarize articles, suggest related articles, highlight things like product launches mentioned in the text, and more. While not exactly RSS, it feels like an expansion of it—rather than a social media algorithm. It's great for professionals and teams who want a research hub.

Feedly is pushing these AI intelligence features heavily for enterprise companies, but it hasn't given up on its original RSS feed reader yet. If that happens, it could be Google Reader all over again.

Want to connect Feedly to the other apps you use? You can do that with Zapier's Feedly integration, which can connect the RSS reader with thousands of apps. This lets you do things like push articles to your Buffer queue, share articles on Slack, or save tagged articles to a Google Sheet. Here are a few more examples.

Feedly price: Free for the Basic plan that lets you follow up to 100 sources and use the web, Android, and iOS apps; the Pro plan starts at $8/month and includes up to 1,000 sources, search, and third-party integrations (including Zapier).

Best free RSS reader for filtering your feeds

NewsBlur (Web, Self-Hosted Web, iOS, Android, macOS)

NewsBlur pros:

• Open source, so you can run it yourself on your own server 

• Automatic filtering is surprisingly effective

NewsBlur cons:

• Dated design

• You have to scroll through each site individually unless you're on a Premium plan

With a free NewsBlur account, you can subscribe to up to 64 different feeds, read full-text content of those sites in its web reader, and save stories to read or access in the future. And you don't even need to click that much while reading in NewsBlur. Just keep scrolling: articles display one after another for action-free reading. (Though it's worth noting, you have to scroll through each site individually. The "River of News" is limited to Premium subscribers.)

But NewsBlur's most interesting feature is its sophisticated AI filtering, which can automatically highlight or hide stories based on certain criteria. If you spend some time training your filters, the system will learn your preferences (like what authors you prefer at a given site) and try to surface the stories that interest you most. That way, you can subscribe to as many sites as you want—even the ones that publish 100 articles a day—and still only see the content you're interested in.

NewsBlur also lets you share your favorite stories, either on social networks or inside of NewsBlur. Within the app, you can add stories that you read and like to your personal "blurblog," or find people with similar interests and follow their blurblogs as well. Or you can run NewsBlur on your own server for free.

NewsBlur has the most traditional look of any of the RSS readers on this list. By that, I mean it looks like it was designed sometime in the late-2000s—despite being redesigned in 2022. It's not bad, per se, but it isn't the modern look of the other apps on this list. If that's a dealbreaker, try Feedly or Inoreader. Feature-wise, though, NewsBlur doesn't fall short.

NewsBlur price: Free for subscribing to up to 64 sites; $36/year for a Premium account that includes 1,000 subscriptions, search functionality, and private sharing; free open source to run on your own server.

Best free RSS reader with search and archiving

Inoreader (Web, iOS, Android)

Inoreader pros:

• Feature-packed with things like filters and advanced rules, so it's best for power users

• Can store your archives permanently 

Inoreader cons:

• On the free plan, it inserts ads into your subscribed RSS feeds

Inoreader is one of the most feature-packed free RSS readers on this list. Without paying a cent, you can follow 150 feeds, and you can even search within your subscriptions. (Full disclosure: this is the app I use personally, and I do pay for the Pro plan.)

While most RSS apps only cache content for the short term, Inoreader doesn't have limited-time archives. Your content—even the stuff you've already read—is stored permanently. To stay organized, you can group your feeds in folders and use tags to separate out individual articles as you read them.

This makes Inoreader a great RSS feed app for power users, but it's very accessible for beginners as well. After signing up, you're guided through a tutorial that shows you how to use the app's major features, making it easy to get up and running even if you have no previous RSS experience.

If you upgrade to Inoreader's premium plan, you get even more features. Add feeds for newsletters you subscribe to, Bluesky accounts, YouTube channels, or Facebook Pages; write advanced rules for sorting your content into folders and tags (this is the feature that makes me pay for Pro); track changes on websites; and even automatically monitor for content about people, companies, trends, events, and more. For anyone who has to stay on top of a few different areas, it's really handy. I'm able to filter certain tech feeds so that I only see posts that are relevant to my beats or search to find an article I read earlier that month. And I don't need to wade through Android content to get to the AI and cybersecurity stuff that I mostly write about.

Inoreader offers a Zapier integration, meaning you can connect it to thousands of other apps. This lets you do things like automatically save starred articles to Instapaper, or compile saved articles in a spreadsheet. Here are some other examples to get you started.

Inoreader price: Free with ads for 150 subscriptions and search functionality; from $9.99/month for Pro plan with rules, filters, and more.

What's the best way to read RSS feeds?

As a throwback to an earlier internet, RSS feeds are incredibly portable. You can export your feedlist from almost any service and re-import it with another. That's how I'm easily able to test all the apps on this list.

You can also read your feeds in third-party apps. There's a healthy set of RSS readers for the Apple ecosystem, and there are also third-party apps for Android (though none I've tested enough to wholeheartedly recommend). You basically use Feedly or Inoreader as the backend and an app that you like even more as your frontend. 

And then you've got weird spins on RSS feeds, like Flipboard and the new version of Reeder.

Or you can turn almost any app activity, like new Slack messages, into an RSS feed with RSS by Zapier. You can also turn almost any app into an RSS reader by using Zapier to send RSS feeds to whatever type of app you prefer. Here are some examples to show you how it works.

All this is to say: one of the best things about RSS feeds remains how much control you have. There's no one best way to follow RSS feeds, but you can certainly find the setup that works best for you.

What is the best RSS reader?

RSS is one of the foundational technologies of the internet; it's kind of like email in that way. But also like email, newer advances in technology haven't reduced its importance. RSS remains the best way to make sure you see everything your favorite sites publish. Just look at how the Twitter/X debacle has played out over the past three years. Even if social media is now more popular for the general public, for writers, researchers, and anyone who wants to keep on top of things, RSS will always be a better option.

All three apps on this list are free, so I'd recommend setting up a few feeds in each one to figure out which one works best for you. And as much as this is an article about RSS feed readers, give Feedly's, Newsblur's, and Inoreader's features that are built on top of RSS a try. While a reverse chronological feed is amazing, the AI, machine learning, and filtering tools can help you tame a long list of different sources into something more manageable.

Related reading:

• How to filter, combine, and customize RSS Feeds

• Ways to use RSS to boost your productivity

• How to get email alerts from an RSS feed

Originally published in September 2015 by Vicky Volvovski, this post has had contributions from Matthew Guay, Jessica Greene, and Justin Pot. The most recent update was in October 2025.

Forget Dunkin'—the world runs on automation.

Well, at least marketing teams with tons of assets to manage and campaigns to run. If the marketing agency I work for didn't automate some of our more tedious tasks, we'd waste a lot of time doing things that software could take off our hands.

There are tons of marketing tools out there that enable you to build automated workflows, but some shine above the rest. After some extensive testing, here are my choices for the best marketing automation software.

The best marketing automation software

• Zapier for AI orchestration

• Brevo for an affordable all-in-one solution

• HubSpot for a premium all-in-one solution

• Omnisend for eCommerce

• ActiveCampaign for AI campaign building

• Klaviyo for user-friendliness

• Customer.io for powerful workflow automations

• Ortto for marketing analytics

• Mailchimp for automating email marketing

What makes the best marketing automation tool?

If your reaction to the term "marketing automation tool" is confusion (and perhaps an eye roll), that's natural. It's a really broad term, and while all tools under this umbrella offer automation tools for some type of marketing, everyone seems to have their own understanding of what it means. So let's define it first.

Here are the criteria I stayed laser-focused on to determine which apps qualified as "marketing automation software" and which ones went above and beyond in the category:

• Automation capabilities. Every platform I tested (and hence every platform that made this list) automates at least two of the following marketing mediums: email, SMS/text, digital ads, and social media. The more mediums the app automates, the better it ranks here. I paid especially close attention to each app's workflow builders, testing how intuitive it was to automate tasks that apply to the customer journey.

• Integrations and functionality. You probably rely on a handful of different tools to execute the monster that is "marketing" at your organization—systems for customer relationship management (CRM), content management, pipeline management, and more. Marketing automation software that integrates with these tools (or, better yet, has them built in) reduces workflow complications as you get all your tools to work together.

• Price to value. Frankly, I was shocked by how much these kinds of apps can vary in price—they range from "free forever!" to the ominous "custom pricing, but never less than $1,000 per user per month." The main thing here is that each app offers a lot of value for the price.

• Ease of use. A learning curve is natural, but being bombarded with a million "how do you…" and "this isn't working" messages from employees three months into using a tool doesn't have to be. Great marketing automation tools have excellent customer support or are so easy to use that you shouldn't even need to rely on support.

• Reporting and analytics. A marketing platform needs data analytics. If I stumbled upon an app that didn't, it went straight to my "nope" pile. The best platforms offer reports that cover all the metrics a marketing team should pay attention to, as well as customizable and user-friendly dashboards to visualize that data and use it to inform future strategy.

I tested each marketing automation platform by signing up for an account, generating or importing sample data, creating custom automations, generating reports, and exploring the nooks and crannies (sorry) of each app's interface. With the help of the above criteria and my own takeaways from testing tools in this category, I selected nine apps that will help you execute impactful automated marketing campaigns.

The best marketing automation software at a glance

Best marketing automation software for AI orchestration

Zapier (Web)

Zapier pros:

• Enterprise-grade security and features coupled with ease of use

• Connects to 8,000+ apps

• Purpose-built for automation

Zapier cons:

• No native email marketing, SMS, advertising, or social media features

Zapier is a little different from the other apps on this list. Instead of serving as an email, SMS, social media, or ads server, it connects to all the other apps you use for those channels—and automates every aspect of those workflows. In short: it helps you get the most from your existing marketing tech stack.

Zapier connects with over 8,000 apps, from CRMs and ad platforms to email marketing tools and spreadsheets, so you can turn a set of disjointed tools into a cohesive, automated system. That makes it particularly useful for marketing teams managing multi-channel campaigns across multiple platforms—think Facebook Lead Ads, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and Google Sheets, all talking to each other without manual data entry.

Zapier also stands out as an AI orchestration platform, making it easy to layer AI into your marketing workflows. You can plug AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini into your workflows to handle tasks that traditionally require manual effort or siloed tools. For example, you could use AI to draft email copy tailored to each lead segment, summarize campaign performance data from multiple sources into digestible insights, or classify incoming leads based on open text fields like job titles or form responses. AI can also clean and enrich contact data by standardizing names, detecting duplicates, or appending missing information like company size or industry—all in real time as new data flows in.

When combined with Zapier Tables for data storage, Interfaces for custom intake forms or review screens, and Chatbots for conversational intake and triage, Zapier becomes a complete AI-powered marketing command center. And you can take your workflows to the next level by adding Agent steps that can make decisions, search for information, and adapt to changing situations. And it's all wrapped in a visual, AI-powered builder.

Zapier's value lies in its flexibility: it helps marketing teams unify fragmented tools, reduce context switching, and unlock personalization and real-time reporting across the marketing tech stack. It's ideal for teams looking to scale personalized, AI-driven marketing efforts across multiple channels and apps. And yes, this is the Zapier blog, so I suggest trying one of these marketing templates so you can have a second opinion (your own). Here are a few examples to get you started.

Zapier pricing: Free plan available; paid plans from $19.99/month

Best marketing automation software for an affordable all-in-one solution

Brevo (Web, iOS, Android)

Brevo pros:

• CRM-meeting scheduler-marketing automation hybrid

• Automates 4+ marketing channels

• Offers a free plan

Brevo cons:

• Relatively simple and inflexible

• Some key functionality is paywalled behind higher tiers

Initially, I wondered if I was impressed by Brevo just because it was the first app I tested and I didn't have anything better to compare it to. But looking back after testing loads of apps, I can honestly say Brevo gives you bang for the buck.

For one, even on its free plan, it automates email, SMS, and WhatsApp—more mediums than some paid marketing software. The app's workflow builder also offers a ton of options, including conditions like delays and A/B splits (splitting contacts 50/50 into two groups), and actions like webhooks and CRM updates (which leads me to my next point).

The platform isn't just a marketing workflow builder—it's also a CRM and meeting scheduling tool. The CRM is pretty simple compared to dedicated CRMs, but it's a nice bonus to the automation features. (Whereas most CRMs have basic automation sequences but more complex sales funnel capabilities.)

The only real downside for Brevo is its scalability. Users looking to get the most out of its two lower-cost tiers will hit some roadblocks as they grow. Free plans come with a limit of 300 emails per day and have Brevo branding, which Starter requires an extra $9 per month to remove. You'll need to pay up for Business or Enterprise for pretty standard functionality like A/B testing, predictive sending suggestions, advanced click/open reporting, and added marketing channels like Facebook Ads and pop-ups.

With Zapier, you can automate Brevo by connecting other marketing platforms, form builders, and thousands of other tools to Brevo. Learn more about how to automate Brevo, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Brevo price: Offers a free plan; from $9/month, billed annually, for the Starter plan

Best marketing automation software for a premium all-in-one solution

HubSpot Marketing Hub (Web)

HubSpot pros:

• Marketing Hub integrates seamlessly with HubSpot's CRM, CMS, customer service, and other solutions

• Extensive yet very easy to use

HubSpot cons:

• Very expensive

• Only chatflow automations are available at free level

• May need a separate Hub for the automations you want

When it comes to marketing software, HubSpot is a real heavy hitter. The platform has a ton of uses, but its omnichannel automation offering requires an upgrade to Marketing Hub Professional. Heads up—it's really expensive, and therefore probably not the best option for startups and small businesses.

For Free and Starter plan users, you do technically get some marketing automation in the form of HubSpot's Chatflows. This is basically just a fancy name for custom chatbots, which isn't nothing, especially for a potentially free plan. Meanwhile, Sequence automations (read: scheduled outreach campaigns) are only available for Sales Hub Professional and Service Hub Professional users, and automated surveys are only available for Service Hub Professional users.

Despite the app's depth and complexity, HubSpot certainly invests in user experience. When I started testing its workflow feature, I was greeted by one of the best demos I've ever encountered. It showed me exactly how to build out a workflow to qualify a lead and send them through a pipeline using an interactive, animated example.

HubSpot's workflow builder is also really powerful. It offers a large set of categorized actions, including internal and external communication, ads management, APIs with lots of other apps, and even enrollment in another workflow. It also makes it easy to classify leads and send the right leads to the right people.

HubSpot has added a suite of AI features, too, under the Breeze moniker, including an AI assistant, Breeze Agents for augmenting workflows, content generation tools, and AI-powered data enrichment. 

The platform also offers stellar analytics for campaigns. You can generate custom reports, pull insights into dashboards, and customize those dashboards however you like using drag-and-drop.

HubSpot offers 2,000 native integrations. But in the event that these integrations don't enable you to automate everything you hoped, you can use Zapier to automate HubSpot, connecting it to thousands more apps, so you can build AI-powered automated systems for your work. Learn more about how to automate HubSpot with Zapier, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

HubSpot price: From $890/month, billed annually, for Marketing Hub Professional

Best marketing automation software for eCommerce

Omnisend (Web)

Omnisend pros:

• Excellent support; offers an entire academy of resources for learning how to use the app

• Free plan comes with extensive features

Omnisend cons:

• Narrowly focused on eCommerce

Brevo's free plan is impressive, but the app is pretty simple. Omnisend, on the other hand, enables significantly more flexibility, and its free plan provides access to many features that other apps would consider premium.

I wasn't able to test many of Omnisend's features firsthand because you need to connect a live eCommerce site (which I don't have) for it to function properly. But based on what I was able to test, plus pre-recorded demos and other online resources, I was able to get a feel for the platform.

Omnisend automates email, push notifications, and SMS, allowing you to choose from a large selection of pre-built categorized workflows that span the customer journey, or build your own custom ones. The workflow builder is intuitive—just drag and drop conditions and actions wherever you want them.

The platform's marketing features also impressed me. It offers creative, professional, and fully customizable email templates with a user-friendly editor, A/B testing for your emails, and even an AI assistant to help you write and personalize them. Omnisend's AI can also generate brand assets, predict churn, find high-value customers, and assist with market research. You even get unlimited access to advanced features like segmentation, forms, and customer profiles at the free level.

As the cherry on top, Omnisend offers 24/7 email and live chat support with its free plan, in addition to Omnisend Academy—an extensive library of well-produced demos and courses to help you get the most out of the app.

Its 160+ native integrations aside, Omnisend integrates with Zapier to serve as an orchestration hub for your AI-powered workflows. That means you can coordinate tasks across your entire stack—for example, importing new subscribers from your website builder, enriching their profiles with AI, and adding them to Omnisend, all without manual intervention. Learn more about how to automate Omnisend, or start with one of these Zap templates.

Omnisend price: Offers a free plan; from $16/month for the Standard plan

Best marketing automation software for AI campaign building

ActiveCampaign (Web, iOS, Android)

ActiveCampaign pros:

• Huge library of multilingual workflow automations

• AI functionality for email content generation, predictive email sending, and automation building

ActiveCampaign cons:

• Doesn't offer templates for form creation

• May be overkill for basic users

• Predictive AI sending is limited to two highest tiers

Most marketing automation software offers a jumping-off point for workflows via pre-built automations, but ActiveCampaign goes several steps further. First, its pre-built automation library is massive, covering industry-specific workflows as well as both internal and external communications like deal win updates and re-engagement campaigns.

It also offers workflows in Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, and Spanish. So if your organization markets to a global audience, ActiveCampaign has you covered.

Drawbacks to ActiveCampaign are few and far between—it's solid software with lots of features and a pretty fair pricing model. As a true CRM, similar to HubSpot, it's got quite a bit of functionality beyond marketing process automations that bridge sales functionality, so it's possible it'll have more features than you need as you scale up its tiers. 

No matter what you use ActiveCampaign for, its AI tools have become a huge perk. Like many other workflow products these days, it's got incorporated generative AI (starting at the Plus tier) to help you compose, summarize, and revise messages, plus AI-powered predictive sending (available only at the Pro tier, which is a bit high compared to some competitors). On the flip side, it also offers AI-powered automation and campaign building at all plan levels, which is pretty impressive. Using ActiveCampaign's chatbot, all you've got to do is describe the workflow or marketing campaign you want to build, and it'll do the rest, drafting the entire automation sequence, setting up trigger conditions, creating personalized email content, and configuring follow-up actions based on customer behavior and engagement patterns.

With ActiveCampaign's Zapier integration, ActiveCampaign becomes part of your AI orchestration layer—so your customer data and engagement workflows stay in sync across platforms. For example, you can coordinate AI-driven actions that update contacts based on signals from your scheduling tools, payment processors, or other systems, ensuring timely and personalized outreach without manual effort. Learn more about how to automate ActiveCampaign, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

ActiveCampaign price: From $15/month, billed annually, for the Starter plan

Best marketing automation software for user-friendliness

Klaviyo (Web, iOS, Android)

Klaviyo pros:

• Large library of high-quality, customizable templates

• Good price-to-value

Klaviyo cons:

• Somewhat eCommerce-focused

If there's one app on this list that wins the "drag-and-drop" award, it's Klaviyo. Nearly everything, from workflows to dashboards to forms, can all be created and customized by dragging elements around wherever you want them to go. At least in my experience, this flexibility lends to a really positive user experience.

The interface is also very clean—not incredibly feature-rich like HubSpot, but also not overly simple or lacking in any tools I'd want in marketing automation software.

The platform also provides several jumping-off points for workflows—use one of its 60+ pre-built options to prevent lost sales, nurture subscribers, build customer loyalty, remind customers to purchase, encourage repeat purchases, update customers on their order status, and more.

While it's plenty useful for just about any marketing workflow need, eCommerce users will probably get the most bang for their buck with Klaviyo. Account creation prompts a Shopify integration, with multiple other eCommerce platform options as alternatives. You can still create everything from forms to workflows to reports for non-eCommerce-specific needs, so I wouldn't necessarily count it off if you're, say, a SaaS company. But eCommerce users will have extra love for incorporating their campaigns and workflows into their sales sites.

In addition to 350+ integrations, Klaviyo connects with Zapier as part of a powerful orchestration layer for your AI-driven marketing workflows. Instead of just syncing contacts, you can coordinate actions across your entire stack—for example, turning website form submissions into enriched subscriber profiles, then routing them into your Klaviyo audience or ad platforms for personalized campaigns. Read more about how to automate Klaviyo, or try one of the following pre-built templates.

Klaviyo price: Offers a free plan; from $20/month for the Email plan

Best marketing automation software for powerful workflow automations

Customer.io (Web)

Customer.io pros:

• Automates a wide variety of marketing channels

• Customizable—you can use as much or as little code as you'd like to customize messages, and you can use Liquid to personalize messages

Customer.io cons:

• Relatively expensive

A lot of marketing apps market themselves as automation-centric when really they're just simple CRMs with relatively weak automation features. But Customer.io is unabashedly a marketing automation point solution, and it fulfills this use case very well.

Through its Journeys platform, you can automate email, SMS, Slack, push notifications to apps, Twilio, and more—covering the most marketing channels of any app I tested. The workflow builder allows you to create webhooks, multi-split branches for customer journeys, trigger campaigns by segments, and more. I also found this workflow builder very easy to use, allowing you to drag and drop actions and triggers into your builder and even save workflow templates.

To help users create the most bespoke automations possible, just about every feature on Customer.io's dashboard can be integrated into workflows. You can build newsletters and messaging campaigns within its intuitive CMS or create high-performing, brand-specific emails using its transactional messaging API. You can add the usual CRM elements like people, audience segments, and imported data fields or create your own custom objects like events, classes, and accounts that fit right into your automated workflows.

Another feature of the app that impressed me was its A/B testing capabilities—you can simultaneously test up to eight variations of a newsletter to identify exactly what's working and what isn't. On top of this, Customer.io now has platform-wide AI that can do things like suggest segments, analyze emails, and draft messages from templates. 

Customer.io also integrates with Zapier to help you unify customer data and engagement across channels. You can do things like automatically capture leads from landing pages or social platforms, enrich them with AI, and add them to Customer.io campaigns—all without manual effort. Learn more about how to automate Customer.io, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Customer.io price: From $100/month for the Essentials plan

Best marketing automation software for marketing analytics

Ortto (Web)

Ortto pros:

• Extensive user activity tracking and reporting

• User-friendly and offers accessible support

• New capture widget allows you to automate tons of lead acquisition approaches

Ortto cons:

• Expensive

Ortto was among the most fun premium marketing automation solutions I tested. Automating SMS and email campaigns via Journeys is user-friendly and takes place on a colorful and whimsical interface. This workflow builder also comes with revision history, so if you make a mistake, you can go back in time to restore a previous version of your Journey. 

The most impressive part of Ortto, however, is its reporting and analytics. The platform tracks nearly every user behavior and gives you 10 ways to visualize that data. Specifically, it comes equipped with over 60 preset activities like email opens, reactions to widgets, and trial terminations, and even allows you to create your own custom "activities" to track. You can pick from a bunch of new capture widgets or create your own from scratch so you can work modular lead-capture approaches into your automated workflows.

These workflows are highly detailed. You can set customer touchpoints on highly specific (or, equally usefully, highly general) touchpoints like new trial activations by user plan, setup wizard completion, and journey completion.

Recently, Ortto has caught up to other AI-powered marketing platforms with tools like AI segmentation, customer evaluation, lead enrichment, and a model builder you can train on your website. You can also use AI to see what your subject line's open rate likelihood is based on predictive Ortto analytics. If it's not so promising, it'll suggest alternatives Ortto's proprietary AI has crafted to be even more effective.

You can then use the app's Reports tab to analyze customer engagement, revenue attribution, and the best time to send a message. You can also create custom dashboards using drag-and-drop (my favorite) that reflect progress toward shared goals.

When you connect Ortto with Zapier, it doesn't just sync data—it helps orchestrate how that data flows across your stack. You can automatically pull in information from spreadsheets, create subscriber records in other platforms, and even layer in AI to segment or personalize at scale. The result: a marketing ecosystem where Ortto is always working in concert with your other tools. Here are a few pre-made workflows to get you started.

Ortto price: From $199/month for the Professional plan

Best marketing automation software for email

Mailchimp (Web, iOS, Android)

Mailchimp pros:

• Functional free plan

• Can be used to create, manage, and automate multiple content formats

• Integrates with other apps for automating email across customer acquisition channels

Mailchimp cons:

• Pricing scales by number of contacts

• Can be just as expensive as CRMs with similar automation tools

You might think of Mailchimp purely as an email newsletter platform, but it checks all the boxes to be considered marketing automation software. While its focus is still decidedly on email marketing, it's also got the automation chops, content management tools, reporting capabilities, and lead tracking features to approach light-use CRM-style functionality.

Mailchimp's automation flow builder is available at the Essentials tier, offering perks like recommended automations and the ability to integrate data from third-party apps. Multi-step automations (up to 100) only open up at the Standard tier, and you'll be relegated to a pretty lackluster four-step limit until you upgrade. 

The flow builder itself is really intuitive (though not drag-and-drop). Just click the touchpoints to open up actions like sending new emails and texts, scheduling messages, initiating Google Analytics tracking, adjusting tags, and changing acquisition channels. You can even integrate other apps in your sales funnel like Shopify and Facebook ads to grow your trigger conditions and start new customer journeys at the point of sale or ad engagement.

Mailchimp is clearly invested in becoming a more general-purpose automation tool. You can even use the platform to build websites, create digital assets with an AI creation wizard, manage creative assets, and design forms and surveys. 

As a general-purpose marketing tool, Mailchimp still isn't as modular as higher-end marketing automation tools. It still pretty clearly leans toward email automation, and many of its automation triggers are dedicated to messaging. But there's a plus to its relative simplicity. It's easy to pick up and start using, is perfectly designed to make lead management more actionable with messaging campaigns, and integrates with many of the top marketing tools to grow its functionality. 

You can extend Mailchimp beyond email by connecting it with Zapier as part of your orchestration layer. Instead of handling campaigns in isolation, you can coordinate how subscriber data, AI-driven insights, and marketing actions flow across your entire stack so the right message reaches the right audience at the right time. Learn more about automating Mailchimp with Zapier, or try one of these pre-built workflows.

Mailchimp pricing: Free for up to 500 contacts; scales by number of contacts starting at $13/month for Essentials

Orchestrate your marketing campaigns with Zapier

When choosing marketing automation software, it's ok to be picky. This will be your go-to tool for your marketing campaigns, ensuring they successfully generate and nurture leads without requiring your team's constant involvement. Once set up, it should do the heavy lifting for you so that you can focus on higher-level strategy.

But even powerful tools like these need some love from other software your business uses, whether that be a separate CRM, customer service solution, CMS, what have you. Zapier can connect to all of these and build them into workflows that orchestrate your marketing process from start to finish. And by adding AI agents that can make intelligent decisions and analyze data, you'll be freeing up more time than you know what to do with.  

Learn more about how to use Zapier for marketing automation.

Related reading:

• The best digital marketing tools

• Free marketing calendar templates to boost your strategy

• HubSpot vs. Pardot: Which is best?

• HubSpot vs. Marketo: Which should you use?

• The best campaign management software

• What is workflow orchestration? And how to get started

• What is revenue operations (RevOps)?

• Marketo vs. Pardot: Which is best?

This article was originally published in April 2022 by Chris Hawkins and has also had contributions from Luke Strauss and Bryce Emley. The most recent update was in October 2025.

Scheduling a meeting is no biggie, right? You just have to trade a dozen emails while squinting at your calendar in a negotiating mode that'd make the UN jealous, all to end alone in a Zoom room realizing that your invitee is actually now sleeping on the other side of the earth. And then the slot-picking gymnastics begin again.

Meeting scheduler apps get rid of this back-and-forth, place the events in open slots in your calendar, and follow up with everyone with the conferencing links. Set it up once, share it with your invitees, and let them book time with you with four or five taps, tops.

There are all sorts of meeting scheduler tools out there covering all kinds of use cases. I've used a few of them over the years, and after diving into every single one for writing this list for you, I think I'm going to switch again. So whether you're here to grab your first one or looking to leave Calendly or Doodle behind, here are the best meeting schedulers.

The 10 best meeting schedulers

• Calendly for simplified scheduling

• Calendar for appointments in a free calendar app

• SavvyCal for ​​mixing polling with a standard scheduling tool

• zcal for a free meeting scheduler

• Clara for an AI scheduling assistant

• Reclaim for priority-based scheduling

• Sidekick for a variety of meeting venues

• Cal.com for maximum flexibility

• Zeeg for a customizable link-in-bio page

• lemcal for beautiful booking pages

What makes the best meeting scheduler?

Meeting scheduling apps are in a race to reduce obstacles and friction, helping people book time with each other without the frustration. This means appealing user interfaces that are easier to read, fewer clicks from start to finish, and team features to smooth out internal coordination.

Here's what I specifically looked for when selecting the best meeting schedulers:

• Ease of use. The meeting scheduler has to be user-friendly for both you as a booking page creator and your invitees.

• External integrations. Beyond the core calendar and video conferencing, connecting your meeting scheduler app with your other apps can automate work related to your meetings. I kept an eye on those with a good list of integrations, as well as those that connect with Zapier.

• Automatic video call setup. Creating a video conferencing link with one of the major platforms and delivering it to all participants is key to a smooth process when using a meeting scheduling app.

• Reminders and follow-ups. Everyone is busy; nudging people to attend reduces no-shows. Follow-ups are great for nurturing and keeping the relationship growing. Having both in your meeting scheduler makes the experience easier and more hands-off for you.

• Value for money. It's a painful problem, sure, but not worth a $100/month commitment. Most of the meeting schedulers here have generous free plans; those that don't compensate with extra features that help you with scheduling, team coordination, analytics, or extra automation.

To test the meeting schedulers, I signed up for each one of the apps below (as well as 40 more that didn't make the cut), created a booking link, and integrated a video conferencing app. Then, I played around with the extra features until I was satisfied with the booking pages, automation, or calendar setup. Lastly, I booked meetings with myself to understand the invitee experience. I'm happy to report I have hours of meetings booked with myself and am receiving an endless stream of notifications for "1-on-1 with Miguel."

Have a Zoom, Google, or Microsoft subscription?

If you already have a subscription with a major software suite or video conferencing solution, run a quick search to see if they've implemented their own meeting scheduling tool. It may turn out to have all the features you need without you having to sign up for yet another platform.

The best meeting schedulers at a glance

Best meeting scheduler for simplified scheduling

Calendly (Web, iOS, Android)

Calendly pros:

• It's a trusted name—which can matter when trying to get people to book with you

• Connects to a lot of calendars

Calendly cons:

• Free plan only supports one meeting type

Make way for the category standard: I regularly meet with people who casually say, "let me send you my Calendly so we can find a time next week." It's the best all-around option because it's a trusted platform, the user experience is polished, and it packs advanced features if you need them. I've been using it for two years, and it has never failed me.

As you onboard, you can connect your calendar, no matter if it lives in Google, Outlook, or Microsoft Exchange. Create your first booking link by choosing the duration, location, and availability options, wrapping it up by connecting your video conferencing software of choice (or setting up a real-world location). You can add buffer time to wind-down and ramp-up for each meeting, as well as payment support with Stripe or PayPal. Comms around the meeting are automated, with Calendly delivering the meeting confirmation by default, and also offering email/SMS reminders and follow-ups once the meet's done.

Once the booking page is live, you can share it with your invitees. They can browse your availability and pick a time on an intuitive interface. Calendly is always linked to your calendar (without ever sharing what you're doing), so it knows how to remove slots when you have events already planned or keep them available if you're free. The emails include cancellation and rescheduling links, which clean up your calendar and keep everyone on the same page.

The free plan isn't as amazing as others below (though freelancers and small business owners will be fine with it), but when you hop on the paid plan, you get a range of smart features that save even more time and streamline your meetings. The biggest examples include the advanced logic for routing people to members of your team based on pre-determined conditions, and enterprise integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot for sales teams moving leads through the pipeline.

By connecting Calendly to Zapier, you can slot Calendly into all your other workflows to create fully automated, AI-powered systems. Do things like creating new Zoom calls whenever a new meeting is scheduled or adding new meeting attendees to your email marketing list. Learn more about how to automate Calendly, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Calendly pricing: Free for meeting polls and 1 one-on-one booking link. Standard plan at $12/month unlocks multiple booking links, booking page customization and integrations with payments, analytics, and sales tools.

Best free meeting scheduler built into a calendar app

Calendar (Web, iOS, Android)

Calendar pros:

• Supports multiple workspaces, each with different calendars and booking links

• Extensive meeting statistics

Calendar cons:

• User interface isn't as polished as others on the list

• Expensive entry-level plan

Looking to upgrade your current calendar setup and streamline meeting booking at the same time? Calendar looks and feels like Google Calendar-lite, with a good free plan that includes meeting links and mobile apps to run the show across your devices.

You can create up to five scheduling links to keep your meeting invitations organized. These can range from quick 15-minute catch-ups to hour-long brainstorming sessions—and everything in between. When offering each booking link, the invitee will only be able to schedule that type of meeting in the available timeslots, which you can change based on type, too. This makes it possible to, for example, schedule a single 30-minute slot per week for networking with new people.

On the paid plan (which, transparently, is pretty expensive), you can address team needs with multiple workspaces, each having its own separate calendar and booking links, keeping all events organized. The setup process is a bit long, but this extra customizability can be useful for companies that run a lot of different events with complex needs. The meeting statistics are quite deep, going beyond the basic time spent to cover attendance records, rejections, and who you're more likely to meet again.

The user interface is simple, with most of the meeting scheduling features tucked away on the left side profile link. You can learn almost everything there is to know about Calendar in under an hour, and either adopt it as your main calendar entry point or your control board to see meeting statistics.

And when you connect Calendar to Zapier, you can make it talk to the rest of your tech stack, and do things like get Slack notifications whenever someone schedules a new meeting with you or add every meeting to a new row in Google Sheets. Here are some templates to see how you can automate Calendar.

Calendar pricing: Free for 1 calendar per user, with 5 customizable booking links; Standard plan at $20/month lets you connect 3 calendars and adds meeting polls and calendar analytics.

Best meeting scheduler for mixing polling with a standard scheduling tool

SavvyCal (Web)

SavvyCal pros:

• Easy to use

• Includes automation and time defense features on the paid plan

SavvyCal cons:

• Only polling on the free plan

Group scheduling is a nightmare. I don't even know how to get it done without a polling tool: do I just get everyone in an email thread, suggest dates, and get ready for cognitive overwhelm? Thanks to SavvyCal, you and I don't have to get tangled up in this, as it combines polling with scheduling, streamlining both.

You can start a new poll by naming it, as if this were a small scheduling project. In the next step, SavvyCal displays your connected calendar so you can highlight the dates and times you're available. Click or drag to select, and you'll see the options line up on the left side of the screen. You can adjust meeting details, such as description or location, and add an attendee to the poll so you can preview their availability along with yours.

On the invitee side, they can see all the suggested slots both as a list and on a calendar view. Unique here is how you can connect your own calendar as an invitee, so you can overlay your events with the dates and times, making it easier to spot where you'll be available. Vote by either clicking the calendar or the list, and remember that this is multi-choice.

As the responses stream in, you can see which people voted for which slots, with a handy vote counter at the bottom of the page to help you lock in on the best. When you click the Schedule button, SavvyCal actually sends out all the meeting invites to everyone involved. Just show up at the agreed date and time, and you're golden.

You can enjoy this part of the tool for free. For creating a static booking link based on your calendar availability—like most other apps offer—you have to hop on a paid plan. This turns SavvyCal into a Calendly/Doodle minimalist child. If you love the polling experience and are interested in automation, team scheduling, and time defense tools, definitely try the basic paid plan.

By connecting SavvyCal to Zapier, you can add scheduling into your existing workflows and make sure SavvyCal can talk to all the other app you use. Zapier can automatically update your to-do list when people schedule a meeting with you, send you a text whenever you get a new meeting request, and generally make scheduling run behind the scenes. Here are some examples to get you started.

SavvyCal pricing: Free plan available for polling features only. Basic at $12/user/month unlocks nearly everything except custom domains, delegating to assistants, and paid bookings.

Best free meeting scheduler

zcal (Web)

zcal pros:

• Useful booking page customization settings

• Good range of integrations available

zcal cons:

• Lacks advanced features, especially around sales automation

"Free" is a powerful word, but it's a relative term in the software world. In some apps, it means a little taste of the features with heavy limitations. zcal is in the opposite camp: it proudly advertises that 99% of its features are free and unlimited, giving you maximum value for nothing.

This means you can connect any number of calendars, generate unlimited meeting links, run meeting polls, and access a range of advanced features not usually seen on free plans. You can add screening questions during the scheduling process, include cover photos and welcome videos, and even embed it on your website.

The app is easy to use in general, although there are some minor user experience quirks. The interface on the meeting creator side can be a bit too simple and not easy to digest at a glance. For example: when you navigate to set your availability, dive into events, or set up team features, you might be left wondering how to go back to the main screen with the booking links and upcoming events. (Just click the zcal logo and you'll be back in that screen.)

Don't worry about the invitee side, though: the booking page is top-notch, really intuitive, with a nice detail as it separates morning slots from afternoon ones with a "noon" divider at 12 p.m. The customization features give a nice touch to make the page more memorable, with three layout controls in addition to the cover/video that I mentioned earlier.

Beyond calendars and video conferencing software, you can integrate zcal with Stripe, although it'll charge you a bit extra if you take payments on the free plan. You can also connect it to Zapier, so you can automate your meeting scheduling across all the apps you use for work. Here are some templates to get you started.

zcal pricing: Generous free plan available. Pro plan at $9.50/month unlocks team features, round robin, and SMS/email reminder messages.

Best AI scheduling assistant 

Clara (Web)

Clara pros:

• The entire scheduling flow happens through email

• Can handle complex scheduling intents

Clara cons:

• Still in beta

Booking links were a great step up from endless back-and-forth between assistants. But this upgrade still introduces friction: you have to open a new tab, browse people's calendars, pick a slot, and confirm. If anyone suddenly can't come, you have to trust they'll use the cancel or rescheduling link in the email so your calendars update; if not, you're doomed to click the link and sit with the digital crickets. Clara keeps everything in your email, using the power of AI to schedule conversationally.

The app setup is simple and short. Connect your video conferencing and set up your meeting types to start. Then, adjust your availability with controls that help Clara understand which areas are fair game, which times should be protected, and the blocks that it should never touch. From this point on, you won't have to keep coming back to this app every day, so that's one fewer browser tab you have to worry about.

So where does the action happen? When chatting with anyone via email and any of you would like to meet, just CC Clara and ask for times (it has a dedicated email address and it recognizes yours). Clara jumps in almost immediately, offering up to five open slots on your calendar as a list in the email body. All your invitee has to do is reply in English—and, since Clara understands scheduling intents well, you can use complicated expressions such as "I can't do Tuesdays" or "Friday mornings are better for me."

Once the invitee locks in on a slot, Clara books it on your calendar, generates the meeting link (or sends instructions if you're phoning or meeting in person), and sends confirmations to everyone involved. You don't have to do anything else. If anyone needs to cancel and reschedule, a simple reply-all to the thread will start either of those flows, and Clara will always keep your calendar up to date.

Clara 3.0 is still in beta and is set to release soon. I know this because, in addition to testing it and chatting with the CEO, I've worked on a content project with them. If booking links aren't living up to the expectations—or if you'd just like to hop on an AI-driven way of scheduling—sign up for the waitlist.

Clara pricing: Currently in beta, pricing not available yet.

Best meeting scheduler for priority-based scheduling

Reclaim (Web)

Reclaim pros:

• Good free plan

• Great analytics and team features

Reclaim cons:

• Requires building a different mindset when approaching your day, which might take some time to fully adopt

After you connect your calendar to a meeting scheduling link, the default behavior is that any events you create inside your availability will block out anyone from booking that slot with you. There are ways around this, of course: you can use multiple calendars or just keep your availability clear for meetings. Reclaim is better: schedule everything on your calendar, and it'll understand which tasks and events to prioritize and use those to either block or allow people to book time with you.

Reclaim can make this happen because it's a little bit more than a meeting scheduling app—so much so that it's almost out of scope for this list. It's an AI calendar with an engine that tracks your habits and reprioritizes your days based on what you have to do. This prioritization engine is behind the smart meeting features, which I'll walk through slowly because they're a bit complex.

There are four tiers of priority for any kind of event in Reclaim. The highest one, critical, can override all others and land on the calendar as soon as possible. The lowest one, low, is a pushover that can easily get bumped around. When creating a booking link, you can assign a priority for all bookings done from that interface. This means that you need to share the critical-labeled link for urgent meetings, or a low-labeled one for those that aren't as key. (You need a paid plan to do this.)

On the invitee side on the critical booking link, they can see all your slots as free, excluding those occupied by other critical tasks. They can book whichever time they need and, when it lands on your calendar, all the lower-priority events are shuffled around to make it work. This dynamic behavior is great if you use your calendar as your control center and interact with it frequently, but if you're like me and it doesn't move around much, it might take some getting used to seeing your time in flow as the day progresses.

Recently acquired by Dropbox, Reclaim has a good free plan for all core features, offering a calendar app where you can plan your life and work, tunnel down into focus time, and protect your important habits. Coupled with the smart meeting, it makes it a really nice calendar co-pilot to help optimize your schedule without you having to work hard for it.

You can also connect Reclaim with Zapier, so you can automate your meeting scheduling across all your apps, building AI-powered workflows that make scheduling easier. Automatically create tasks in Reclaim whenever certain actions happen in the other apps you use every day. Here are some examples to get you started.

Reclaim price: Free plan available for 1 scheduling link and 1 Smart Meeting. Starter plan at $10/user/month offers 3 scheduling links and 3 Smart Meetings.

Best meeting scheduler for a variety of meeting types

Sidekick (Web)

Sidekick pros:

• Save your favorite physical locations (not just digital)

• Minimalist, intuitive dashboard

Sidekick cons:

• AI features aren't as great as they are on other AI scheduling apps

If you hold a lot of meetings in person, Sidekick is a great choice. It's a free calendar and scheduling app that lets you save a variety of your favorite meeting types. Not only can you integrate with your most-used video conferencing tools like Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet, but you can also save your favorite physical meeting locations. 

Like to network at your local Starbucks? Want to hold interviews at your office location? Save those under your My Locations tab, then create a unique scheduling page with that location automatically linked. Guests can book a meeting with you and receive the location's address instantly. No more back-and-forth about where to meet.

Beyond the multiple meeting venues, Sidekick is also reliable and easy to use. It has a very minimalist and intuitive dashboard layout, and you can easily set your availability preferences and default meeting durations across all meeting types. 

And for paid users, Sidekick also provides a "Forward to Schedule" function, which lets you forward incoming meeting request emails to the app. The requester will immediately get a friendly reply with a link to your booking page, saving you the time it would take to reply to each inbound meeting request. 

Sidekick pricing: Free for up to 3 scheduling pages. Superhero plan at $5/month for unlimited scheduling pages, advanced analytics, and access to Forward-to-Schedule features.

Best meeting scheduler for maximum flexibility

Cal.com  (Web, macOS, Windows)

Cal.com pros:

• Highly customizable on the backend

• Free for individuals

Cal.com cons:

• You can't customize the booking pages very much

Cal.com is an open source scheduling tool that impressed me with its flexibility and customization. No matter which calendars you use or tools you want to connect to, Cal.com can make it happen. And while the free individual plan is robust, the team plan also lets you set up custom workflows to automate anything from routing forms to reminder notifications.

The setup process with Cal.com is simple, and I appreciated that the tool comes pre-filled with a few event types to get you started. You can set your availability, create basic booking pages for an unlimited number of event types (even on the free plan), and even choose whether to allow invitees to make recurring bookings.

I will say that if you want an especially customized or colorful booking page, you may not want to go with Cal.com. Aside from choosing a single brand color for light and dark themes, you don't have much control over booking page aesthetics. You can choose from a few custom calendar layout options (weekly, monthly, and columns), but other than that, your choices are limited.

But if you're more interested in customizing your automations and integrations, I recommend giving Cal.com a try. The app lets you choose from eight calendar apps, 20+ video conferencing tools (including Cal's in-house option, Cal Video), and many more. You can also use Cal's public API to build your own custom integrations.

And by connecting Cal to Zapier, you have even more flexibility and customization options. Easily send new bookings to your favorite CRM or task management app, for example, or try one of these pre-made workflows to orchestrate all your scheduling workflows.

Cal.com pricing: Free for individuals; Team plans start at $15/user/month, billed annually

Best meeting scheduler for a customizable link-in-bio page

Zeeg (Web)

Zeeg pros:

• Good free plan

• Straightforward user experience

Zeeg cons:

• Advanced integrations only available in the highest paid plan

If you shared your link with an invitee via email, people will already be aware of who you are and what you do. But this page can also be part of a funnel: it can be offered after a landing page, in your social media profiles, or via email in a campaign. To turn this moment into an opportunity to showcase your brand, products, or services, you can customize a link-in-bio page with all your scheduling links in Zeeg.

This page is called a Zeeg itself: click on the corresponding tab on the left side menu after you log in. Despite the simple controls, the page is surprisingly customizable. You can align the header along the horizontal axis, adding a description, profile picture, and a collection of all your contact methods and social media channels for easy access.

Below, you can add images, header/body text, and dividers for organization. These are great to structure your offers, your brand values, or who you are. You can rearrange the layout of these elements, stacking them in rows or in side-by-side columns. You can make them small or long rectangles or squares, and drag them to the sides of the page to position them along the grid.

Finally, we get to the scheduling blocks. For a faster user experience, the largest square displays the calendar with your availability right off the bat. When someone clicks a date, they get taken to a separate page to start the booking process for that day. In smaller layouts, you can see the name of the meeting, duration, and a short CTA. This is useful if you have multiple booking links for different services or purposes, helping you articulate your offer easily.

Another perk is Zeeg's Zapier integration, which helps you automate the scheduling process even more: you can automatically schedule or cancel an event in Zeeg based on things that happen in other apps across your tech stack. Here are a few examples to show you how it works.

Zeeg price: Free plan available for unlimited events, 2 active scheduling pages, and 1 calendar connection. Professional plan at $12/user/month unlocks unlimited scheduling pages, up to 4 calendars per user, and group event scheduling.

Best meeting scheduler for creating beautiful booking pages

lemcal  (Web)

lemcal pros:

• Aesthetically pleasing booking pages

• Easy to navigate and set up

lemcal cons:

• Minimalist features

lemcal doesn't have all the flashy features of other tools on this list, but if you want to create booking pages that stand out, it's a great option. When setting up your booking page, upload a cover photo and headshot. Then, choose from stock photos, gradients, solid colors, or manually imported photos for the background image. You can even customize the page's layout to include real-time widgets of your social media feeds. 

When you sign up for lemcal, you'll choose your availability and connect with your calendar and chosen video conferencing tools. Create up to three active meeting types on the free plan, and add custom questions and lead routing preferences to each meeting type. You can also set up custom reminders and follow-ups. Paid plans support group and round-robin meetings, white-label branding, and payment processing through Stripe.

And by connecting lemcal to Zapier, you can add maximum functionality to your presentation-forward meeting scheduling setup. For example, you might send events to your favorite task management tool, or send Slack notifications for new bookings. Get started with these pre-made templates.

lemcal pricing: Free for 1 calendar and 3 active meeting types; $9/month for up to 5 calendars, advanced meeting types, white-label booking pages, and more.

Make meetings better with a meeting scheduler app

The right meeting scheduler helps you get meetings onto your calendar quickly and efficiently. You can keep the productivity going by automating your scheduling workflows and even automating meeting action items. That way, it's not just the scheduling that's a breeze, but the entire process that follows.

Related reading:

• How to use Scheduling Assistant in Outlook

• The best AI scheduling assistants

• The best AI meeting assistants

• Calendly vs. Google Calendar appointment schedule

• Microsoft Bookings vs. Calendly: Which is best?

This article was originally published in January 2019 by Jill Duffy and has had contributions from Jennifer Allen, Eric Ravenscraft, and Nicole Replogle. The most recent update was in October 2025.

You can, technically, use a butter knife to cut fresh carrots. That doesn't mean it's the best tool for the job. People tend to use spreadsheets the same way, settling for a tool that kind of works when a database would be better.

Why do people avoid using databases? Because they can be difficult to use and often require SQL scripting skills. That's where Airtable comes in: it gives you the power of a database without the complexity.

Table of contents:

• What is Airtable? 

• Database vs. spreadsheet

• How to use Airtable at a glance 

• What is Airtable used for? 

• Import content to Airtable from other apps 

• Advanced Airtable features

• Airtable FAQs

What is Airtable?

Airtable is a cloud-based platform for creating and sharing relational databases. But unlike other relational databases, it doesn't require any programming knowledge. The user-friendly interface allows anyone to spin up a database in minutes; if you've used a spreadsheet, you can use Airtable. You can store, organize, and collaborate on information about anything—like employee directories, product inventories, bug trackers, the list goes on. You don't even have to learn what SQL stands for, let alone any scripting.

Database vs. spreadsheet

So, what's the difference between a spreadsheet and a database? At first glance, databases look a lot like spreadsheets, with pages of grid lines and tabs. You also organize the data in rows and columns just like you would in a spreadsheet.

But that's where the similarities end. 

In a spreadsheet, you'll use functions like =SUM(A1:A5) to calculate values and crunch numbers. In a database, you'll typically use SQL queries like SELECT * FROM Customers; to find and compare data. You could compare data in a spreadsheet, but databases are much more powerful and far less easy to mess up.

A relational database doesn't just store data—it stores relationships between that data. For example, you could use it to link all of the songs in your music collection with categories such as artist, title, and era. You can then use those relationships to answer questions like, "What songs in my collection contain 'baby' in the title and are '90s hits?" And you can do this without modifying the database itself. 

A general practice is to use a database to organize a large amount of information. Spreadsheets, on the other hand, are more suited for running calculations. 

But here's what makes Airtable special: it gives you the best of both worlds. It's a relational database that's as easy to work with as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.

How to use Airtable at a glance

There are five basic building blocks to an Airtable database:

• Bases

• Tables

• Fields

• Records

• Views

Bases

A base (short for "database") stores all the information you need for your project. Your base might be called "Employee Directory" or "New Car Shopping." (Ours is called "Blog planning and production.") 

You could start with a blank base and build it out from scratch, but starting with a template is a good way to take a peek under the hood and get familiar with what's possible. Airtable offers a robust library of templates that are pre-populated with relevant sample data that you can modify with your own. For example, there are templates for an employee directory, event planning, and even job hunting.

To get started with a template, select the one you want to use, and then click Try this template. 

Tables

Tables, which make up bases, contain a list of data about one particular type of item. Each base can have one or more tables, similar to worksheets in a spreadsheet. In the example shown below, the Employee Directory database has three tables: Employee directory, Departments, and Location. 

To add a table, click Add or import. You can create a table from scratch, or you can import data from a couple dozen options, including other Airtable bases, an uploaded CSV, Google Sheets, and other enterprise apps.

You can also choose to Build with Omni, which will open up a sidebar that lets you describe what you want to build in natural language—Airtable's AI will then create the table for you.

Fields

Fields are the equivalent of spreadsheet columns, though fields are designed to bring consistency to your data; unlike in a spreadsheet, you can only enter the type of data defined by the field.

Each field has a name and can be customized to hold a wide variety of content, including photos, attachments, text, dates, status updates, checkboxes, and dynamic AI fields. There are more than 20 different field types in total, which means you can store basically any type of data—very un-spreadsheet like.

In the Employee directory table, the column containing addresses is the Home address field.

To add a field, click the Add field icon, which looks like a plus sign (+), on the far right of your fields. Then select the type of field you want to add. Give it a name and customize the field (customization options will vary depending on the field type), and then click Create field. 

Or, if you want to edit an existing field, click the down caret (∨) beside the field name, and then click Edit field.  

Records

A record is an individual item in a table, along with all of its relevant details. They're the database equivalent of spreadsheet rows. In the table of employees shown below, each record is a different employee, and that employee's relevant data, such as their name, department, and address, is detailed in fields.

If you want to focus on one record, click the Expand icon, which looks like two diagonal arrows pointing in opposite directions, to expand it.

To add a record, click the Add record, which looks like a plus sign (+), at the bottom of a grid view. Or you can click an existing record and then use the keyboard shortcut: Shift+Enter.

Note: The button to add a record changes position depending on the view. For example, it's at the bottom of each stack in a Kanban view, and it's in the side panel in a Calendar view.  

The power of a relational database relies on its relationships. Your records in one table can have a relationship with your records in another table by adding a link. After creating an association between tables, you can use that to get information from the other table. For example, while we're in the Employee directory table, we can link each employee to their department. This would display the name of the department on the same card as the employee and make it easy to pull up information about that department at any time. 

Views

While it can be helpful to view all of your records at once, you can also create multiple views for each table in a base. Think of a view in Airtable as a different lens through which you can see the same underlying table data. These customized views can be useful when you want to see only records fitting certain criteria—perhaps to see all employees in the engineering department. You can even create a calendar view to get a snapshot of employees' birthdays.

There are seven standard view types in Airtable: Grid, Calendar, Gallery, Kanban, Timeline, List, and Gantt. You can also create a form, but that's for collecting data, not really a view in itself.

To show you how views work, here are a couple examples in action.

A Gallery view displays your records as large cards. This view is particularly useful for highlighting attachments to your records, like employee headshots and performance reports.

A Kanban view gives you another way to visualize your records on a board of stacked cards. You can click and drag to move cards between different stacks or reorder them within a stack—a great way to make a workflow for your projects or show what stage different projects are in.

To create a custom view of your data, click your desired view in the Create section. Enter a view name, and then click Create new view. Depending on the type of view you created, Airtable may prompt you to customize a few more fields. 

What is Airtable used for? 

This article would get unwieldy if I listed all of Airtable's use cases—not to mention that what you'll use it for will depend on your role. To give you an idea of the app's versatility, though, here are some examples of what you can do with Airtable: 

• Manage a CRM: With Airtable's ability to link related records, you can track and share notes about interactions with prospects, customers, partners, and anyone else you work with across an organization.

• Track projects: Among the best project management apps on the market today, Airtable offers the most customization. This makes it ideal for collaborating on projects because each team member can tailor the database to suit their needs. For example, a project manager can create a timeline view to get a high-level overview of a product launch, while a designer can quickly sort their tasks by due date. And you don't have to create a database from scratch: use Airtable's project tracker template to kick things off. 

• Plan content: For marketing teams, Airtable is a great option for mapping out your content schedule (this is what we use to manage our blog content at Zapier). 

• Manage marketing campaigns. With support for 20 different field types, you can store every piece of your campaign: text, images, videos, audio, and beyond. And views like Gantt can help ensure that campaigns launch on time and that dependencies are accounted for.

• Manage HR work. HR teams can use Airtable for applicant tracking, organizational charts, employee directories, org charts, employee training calendars, and anything else that requires a structured view of HR data.

Import content to Airtable from other apps

If you want to transfer data from an existing app into Airtable, it's really straightforward to do. 

In the side panel of your Airtable homepage, click Import. Select the destination workspace, click Continue, then select which source you want to import your data from. You can upload a CSV file or sync data from Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. You can even pull your data from popular apps like Asana, Notion, and Dropbox.

Let's say you upload data from an existing spreadsheet. Airtable will give you a preview of your data. You can also edit your fields at this stage. Then click Import. 

By default, Airtable will populate your data into a grid view. If this isn't how you want to visualize your data, create a new view. 

Advanced Airtable features

Once you've created a few bases and you're comfortable navigating your way around Airtable, use these advanced Airtable features to get even more out of your database. 

Note: This provides a high-level overview of each feature. Click on a feature for an in-depth guide on how to use it. 

• Omni is Airtable's AI. It makes Airtable a kind of AI app builder for internal tools. Using natural language and Airtable's no-code builder, you can deploy apps for your team, and you can put Omni to use across your data.

• Airtable Automations enable you to create up to 50 automated workflows directly within an Airtable base. For example, you can build a workflow to automatically notify your team in Slack when the project status on an Airtable record changes to "complete."

• Airtable Extensions let you add extra functionality to your bases. For example, with a chart extension, you can visualize your data as a bar, line, or donut graph directly from your base. 

• Airtable insights help teams understand how everyone is interacting with their shared bases, and suggest ways they can optimize them. You can get insights on everything from how to fix a broken Airtable automation to high-level data on user activity. 

• Interface Designer. If your base contains a lot of data, it can be overwhelming for other collaborators to navigate. Sure, you can filter the data using different views, but even combing through different views can be a dizzying task. Airtable's Interface Designer lets you create custom dashboards containing only information you want collaborators to see. It's a useful way to get others to do things like approve requests or provide status updates—without getting bogged down by other details. 

• Record templates allow you to build templates for your most repeated records. Let's say you use Airtable to manage projects that often involve the same set of tasks and milestones. Instead of manually creating the same record, you can use record templates to quickly populate a fully fleshed-out base for each new project. 

Automate Airtable 

Airtable Automations give you a taste of simple, hands-free data management. With Zapier's AI-powered orchestration, you can turn Airtable into the central hub of a much smarter system. By connecting Airtable to thousands of other apps, Zapier lets you coordinate complex processes across tools without manual effort.

For example, automatically send form submissions to Airtable, trigger AI to analyze or enrich the data, and then route results to the right channels or teammates. Learn more about how to automate Airtable, or get started with one of these workflows. 

Airtable FAQs

If you're still wondering why you should use Airtable over your tried-and-true spreadsheet app, or how you can access the app, here are answers to commonly asked questions about Airtable.

Is Airtable a spreadsheet or database?

Although the default view in Airtable makes it look a lot like a spreadsheet, Airtable is a relational database. This means it does more than just store data (the main function of a spreadsheet)—it stores relationships between that data. Learn more about the differences between a database and a spreadsheet. 

And if what you're really wondering is, "Should I store my data in Google Sheets or Airtable?", this article will answer that for you: Airtable vs. Google Sheets: Which should you use?

Is Airtable free? 

Airtable offers a free plan, which includes unlimited bases, up to 1,000 records per base, and up to five users. To unlock significantly more records per base (up to 50,000), 20GB of attachments, and more view options, you can upgrade to a Team plan for $20/user/month. 

Does Airtable have a desktop app? 

It does. In addition to using Airtable for the web, you can use the macOS or Windows desktop app. 

Related reading:

• The best database-powered app builders

• Automated workflows to help you get the most out of your database

• How to connect Airtable to webhooks

• How to send emails for new Airtable records

• Smartsheet vs. Airtable: Which is best?

• How to export Airtable to Excel or Google Sheets

• The best Airtable alternatives

This article was originally published in January 2017 by Kim Kadiyala and has also had contributions from Justin Pot. The most recent update was in October 2025.

With new problems popping up every day, you need robust solutions to keep them all under control. Even if you have an IT team to build internal tools for you, their backlog is probably full of higher-priority tasks.

For businesses that can't wait to move forward, internal tool builders can help you develop custom apps for every problem—in as little as a few hours, once you're familiar with the platforms. No more juggling all varieties of data sources: all the data is centralized, ready to be plugged into a user interface with custom logic buttons included.

I've spent a lot of time tinkering with and writing about app builders, and this time, I researched and tested the top internal tool builders to find ones to help you solve problems, stay agile, and enhance your productivity. Based on all my testing, here are the best internal tool building platforms.

The 9 best internal tool builders

• Zapier for AI orchestration

• Glide for a no-code solution

• Softr for creating with AI

• Google AppSheet for starting from a spreadsheet

• Zoho Creator for connectivity and extensibility

• Microsoft Power Apps for advanced logic without code

• Budibase for an open source solution

• Retool for extending with code

• OutSystems for an enterprise-grade solution

What is an internal tool builder?

An internal tool builder is a platform that lets you build custom apps for you and your teammates to use at work. That might be a bespoke CRM, a customized task management app, a social media tracker, an editorial calendar, or anything in between.

It's important to remember that internal tool builders are different from other app builder platforms. They focus on data and functionality, providing the flexibility to let you solve internal business problems. You'll be able to set up dashboards to view all your data with one glance and add interfaces and buttons to make quick changes. For your teams, you'll be able to create a set of customizable apps to streamline day-to-day work.

If this isn't exactly what you're looking for:

• Consider using a database-powered app builder if you're upgrading from spreadsheets.

• Explore the best no-code app builders for building any kind of app beyond internal tools—or check out the best AI app builders.

• Check out work OS apps like monday.com or ClickUp. While neither are internal tool builders (or app builders in general), they offer plenty of modules that can cover most of your productivity-related challenges. 

Not sure where to even start? I wrote a guide to picking the right app builder for your project so you know what to look for.

What makes the best internal tool builder?

The most basic tools here will offer various data connections, a way to display that data using a collection of UI components, and all the create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) actions to manage data. More advanced solutions will let you customize the user experience, add advanced logic, and even set up workflow automation.

Here's what I looked for when testing all the internal tool builders:

• Development options. While I prefer no-code, I looked for platforms that offer a combination of development methods, including low-code and full-code. This should make it flexible to let your non-technical team members create apps and your IT department scale them.

• Data sources and integrations. I looked at the range of data sources you can connect to your internal tool builder, along with third-party integrations to help you move data around and trigger automations.

• Flexibility and customization. The apps in this list will help you create common internal tools, such as a CRM or an inventory manager, along with more specialized solutions, offering a good range of customization settings.

• Scalability, performance, and reliability. I looked at uptime reports where available, read user reviews on this particular topic, and ran performance tests in the editor and the apps to make sure they don't break easily.

• Platform reputation. I'm prioritizing platforms that have a proven track record and that look like they're sticking around for the long run.

I tested these apps over the course of one month. After signing up for each one, I created apps from scratch and from templates, following the available help guides. I built a few CRMs, a seasonal promotion tracker, a project management tool, and an internal onboarding guide, among a few others. Whenever I faced low-code or code challenges, I used ChatGPT to understand the requirements and put together a few code lines to make things work.

What are no-code, low-code, and full-code?

I labeled each app to give you an idea of how much code is required to use each one. You can take a look at Zapier's guide to low-code vs. no-code for more details, but here's the gist:

• No-code means the platform has a series of visual processes to let you create your app. These include point-and-click controls, drag-and-drop elements, and language that makes it easy for non-technical users to start building apps.

• Low-code tools come in two flavors (note: this is my distinction). Easy low-code only requires you to know a bit of SQL for working with data and JavaScript or Python for building advanced logic; everything else is no-code. Hard low-code are developer tools: shortcuts for time-consuming processes in the app development process, requiring a deep understanding of code and digital infrastructure.

• Full-code. I added "full" to differentiate it from the other options. In this article, it means you'll need computer science or engineering training, or equivalent professional experience.

The best internal tool builders at a glance

Best internal tool builder for AI orchestration

Zapier (no-code)

Zapier pros:

• Enterprise-grade security and features coupled with ease of use

• Integrates your app with over 8,000 apps (and counting)

• Allows you to set up complex step-by-step logic

Zapier cons:

• Not as granularly customizable as some other options

Zapier is an AI orchestration platform. It combines automation, AI, databases, and interfaces to let you build powerful internal tools. And because of its automation-first mindset, your tools will connect to the rest of your tech stack too (it connects with over 8,000 apps). You'll use Interfaces for building the UI, Tables for storing data, Chatbots for natural language interactions, Zaps for automated workflows, and Agents for semi-autonomous AI workflows—all with automation at the core.

Using AI or drag-and-drop tools, you can add user interface components, including text, media, forms, Kanban views, link cards, tables, dividers, buttons, checklists, and even AI chatbots. When you capture data, it can be stored in Zapier Tables or sent to whatever other app you want. And what makes it unique is that you can add a new Zap to any button in Interfaces, Chatbots, or Tables, acting as a starting point for complex automation runs across your tech stack. There are components that let you interact with AI, too, so you can add intelligence to conventional automation.

In a matter of minutes, you could build a form to capture internal requests, an onboarding hub for new employees, or an approval request process. Here are a few templates to get you started.

Zapier price: Free plan available. Professional plan at $19.99/month (billed annually). All plans include Interfaces and Tables (Chatbots and Agents priced separately).

Best internal tool builder for a no-code solution

Glide (no-code)

Glide pros:

• Very intuitive

• Lots of templates

Glide cons:

• Limited data connections available on non-enterprise plans

I'm always impressed when I hit the preview button on a Glide app. The user interface is sleek, with discreet animations to add a bit of fun to the work. The fact that it looks so good tricked me into thinking that it's not powerful under the hood—and then I found the advanced logic pop-up. The experience is entirely no-code, giving you plenty of building freedom without requiring dozens of hours of training.

All the apps you build here are responsive, looking great on all screens, especially mobile. For desktop, you may have to experiment with the page width settings to make text easier to read. It leverages smartphone features such as the camera, so you can take pictures inside your app and add them to a field inspection file or an inventory tracking database.

The AI wave hit Glide, too, letting you integrate shiny features into your apps: text generation, text-to-image, data extraction, and audio-to-text. You can add these screens to your app, making it easier to send your data into an AI model without tabbing out to ChatGPT. Take a look at how they work in this template.

Looking at the pricing page, Glide seems to target individuals and smaller businesses. In the lower plans, you can use the native database, Google Sheets, Airtable, and Excel to store your data. If you want to connect your developer-grade databases, you'll have to talk to sales to hop on the Enterprise plan. 

And speaking of connections, you can link Glide and Zapier together to connect your Glide app to all the other apps you use. Build AI-powered workflows that work behind the scenes, so you can focus on building. Here are a few examples.

One last heads-up for pricing: each plan has limitations on number of stored records, total storage, and number of CRUD operations. If you're going to use these apps heavily, be ready to upgrade sooner.

Glide feels great to use, both while building apps and while using them to tackle your work. It's also the perfect place to start if you've never built an app before: the available help content is one of the best out there.

Glide price: Free plan available. Explorer plan, at $25/month, lets you publish 1 app for 100 personal users and 250 data sync runs.

Best internal app builder for creating with AI

Softr (no-code)

Softr pros:

• Very easy to learn

• Quick results, even without using AI

Softr cons:

• UI lags when displaying large lists of data

AI is threatening the concept of starting from scratch. Instead of having a blank canvas, you can edit a starting point, focusing on the tweaks—not the big, boring work. Softr hops on this trend with one of the best AI app building features around.

It's really easy to begin. Visit the Softr AI page, choose the type of app you'd like to build, write a prompt with additional instructions, and hit the Preview my app button. This will generate a name for your app and ask you which style you'd like to apply—once you're happy with these, click to actually begin building. The platform will get everything ready, and you'll be able to use a preview of your app in just a couple of minutes.

This AI prototype already covers a lot: you get all the main pages based on your prompt, with lists for data display peppered with buttons to add or edit data. Click to start editing this suggestion, and you'll be taken to the Softr editor, one of the easiest experiences on the market for building an app. Create new pages, add new blocks to take payments or forms to collect data, and configure them on the right-side menus.

With the interface ready to go, it's time to connect your data sources: Airtable, Google Sheets, and MySQL, among many other popular names in the business space. And if your data source isn't listed, subscribing to the paid plan lets you use the API, so you can set up a few calls to grab and push data into your data warehouses of choice.

And speaking of integrations, you can connect Softr to Zapier to unlock advanced logic and access to over 8,000 apps. You'll be able to build AI-powered workflows that connect your app to all the other tools in your tech stack, so you can streamline app management. Learn more about how to automate Softr, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

It's no surprise that the number of positive reviews for Softr keeps growing. And it offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee for its top paid plans, so you can combine easy-to-use tools with excellent reliability.

Softr price: Free plan available. Basic plan at $59/month for 3 published apps, 20 app users, and 2 user groups.

Best internal app builder for starting from a spreadsheet

Google AppSheet (mostly no-code; easy low-code for advanced features)

AppSheet pros:

• Generates an app based on your spreadsheet

• Interesting extra features, such as machine learning on your data

AppSheet cons:

• Editor interface is a bit unintuitive

All the solutions on this list let you configure your data sources, edit your user interface, and keep hitting the preview button as you test and implement more features.

Google AppSheet has a different philosophy. Upload one of your spreadsheets, and AppSheet will use its AI engine to sketch an app you can use to interact with the data and data types on it. After that, you can customize each page of the app with a set of menus that have the cleanliness that Google has made us expect. The whole user experience is very Google, both while building the app and in terms of how your final app feels. The terminology is a bit advanced in some of the interactions, but there's a lot of help (including a free video course on Udemy) to support you through the process.

I uploaded a spreadsheet with data for fictional employees, and AppSheet built a simple profile view and button to let me edit each entry. In five minutes, I was able to create a form to add new employees with a quick Google search and a couple of clicks.

The best part: AppSheet builds responsive apps that look great on any device. You can even include features that smartphones can take advantage of, like barcode scanning (albeit those features come at a higher price point). Other interesting features include machine learning and text recognition to add some artificial intelligence to your builds.

You can build and edit all you want, for as long as you want. AppSheet will only start charging when you're ready to deploy your app to a live setting. While the setup time for Google AppSheet is longer and the learning curve a bit steeper, the range of solutions you can create is potentially much wider.

You can do even more with AppSheet by connecting it to Zapier to do things like creating a new record based on a sale or form submission. Here are some examples to get you started.

Google AppSheet price: Free to build; deploying an app starts at $5/user/month with basic application and automation features.

Best internal app builder for connectivity and extensibility

Zoho Creator (no-code/low-code hybrid)

Zoho Creator pros:

• Wide feature set covering internal tools, BI dashboards, and AI

• Offers iOS and Android versions of your apps

Zoho Creator cons:

• Not very intuitive

Forty years ago, most IT systems were monolithic giants that had to be taken down and redeployed for every tiny update. Today, adopting a modular mindset is a much better answer for fast-changing business circumstances, quick incident recovery, and infinite scalability. If you're already here, Zoho Creator is great for gathering these microservices into a single platform and building apps to interact with them.

On the left side of the dashboard, click the Microservices tab. The next step is choosing which kind you'd like to add: the most obvious ones are adding a data source or a custom API. Creator also integrates with a range of popular apps, such as Salesforce or Stripe—and nearly the entire Zoho software suite too.

But there are two more interesting options in this tab. The first is AI, offering a way to tune a model for predictions and object detection, while also offering the more common sentiment analysis and OCR. The other is augmented reality sets, a way to store 3D assets to use in these kinds of applications—for example, to create a more immersive shopping experience for your clients.

Once everything is connected and ready, you can move forward to building your internal tools. There's so much you can do here: data collection apps, analytics dashboards, automation control boards, the list goes on. Use the Design tab of the builder (and the Page editor within it) to add visual components, set up the functionality in Workflows, and go deeper in the Settings tab. And if you need advanced logic at any time, Creator lets you bring out your code skills and write your way to the solution.

While we're talking about solutions, you can connect Zoho Creator to Zapier and further extend it with the power of thousands of other apps. Learn more about how to automate your Zoho apps, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.

Zoho Creator price: Standard plan at $12/user/month for 1 application and 5 data sources.

Best internal tool builder for advanced logic without code

Microsoft Power Apps (easy low-code)

Power Apps pros:

• Runs on Microsoft Azure and integrates with all Microsoft products

• Lets you build and edit apps with AI

Power Apps cons:

• Some useful advanced features are priced separately

Microsoft Power Apps feels like the super-powered grandchild of the classic Microsoft Access. It's a Microsoft product through and through, with the user experience we've grown used to. It's surprising how much you can do with Power Fx, a formula language for Power Apps that lets you build advanced logic without having to code. The syntax is similar to spreadsheet formulas, making it easier to learn, read, and understand.

It has the highest number of native integrations with third-party apps when compared with others on this list. It works with all the business-oriented Microsoft 365 apps like SharePoint, Microsoft Azure web services, and a huge range of other apps—from familiar faces such as Dropbox to specialized enterprise-grade software.

What I love about Power Apps is its flexibility. You can start building by importing data, by putting together the user interface, or from a template. You can see all your data in a single tab in the dashboard, configure multi-step flows, or even start training an AI model. The more I clicked through the tabs, more possibilities popped up. The flexibility is there in the editor, too, letting you add plenty of UI components and customize their look and functionality.

Usually, the more power you have in your hands, the more difficult the platform is to learn. This isn't necessarily true for Power Apps. There's a quick tour on the homepage that gives you a pretty complete idea of everything you can do. When using the app itself, the controls feel intuitive—as if PowerPoint was overhauled with magic buttons. And with the Power Fx that I mentioned before, you can advance a lot faster once you get familiar with the basics.

Power Apps is the app on this list that surprised me the most when I first used it. Even if you end up choosing another solution in the end, I encourage you to sign up for a free account and try it out yourself.

Microsoft Power Apps price: Premium at $20/user/month. Features such as web page publishing and training AI models are priced separately.

Best open source internal tool builder

Budibase (easy low-code)

Budibase pros:

• Open source

• Pleasant design system

Budibase cons:

• Advanced security and auditing are paid features even if you self-host

Budibase is open source, and it gives you most of its features for free if you want to self-host it. If you don't know how to do it, be sure to have an IT person do it for you—deploying Budibase in your servers isn't a walk in the park.

The platform itself feels great to use. The app editor window is clean, with all the controls grouped up and organized in four major tabs:

• Data lets you create a new data source or connect an existing one. You can bring in everything you need to power this specific app and manage it in this tab.

• Design lets you add the screens of your app, fill them with UI components, display data, and configure what each button does.

• Automation lets you configure step-by-step actions that happen when a trigger is activated.

• Settings contains a few useful controls for backing up your app, managing versions, and even embedding this app inside other tools.

Over the last year, Budibase introduced a range of AI features targeting different problem sets. The first big one is AI Configs, helping you connect LLMs into your internal tools so you can build custom functionality. The second one is Budibase AI, which integrates an OpenAI model into your internal tools, making it easier to use generative features in your work—without you having to set up AI Configs at all. If you don't want to get bogged down by this setup, activate Budibase AI, which integrates an OpenAI model into your internal tools.

One quick note on the design: while other internal tools don't care much about the aesthetics, Budibase locks you in a pleasant design system, with balanced spacing between elements and good color rules to differentiate visual elements—especially useful at the end of a busy workweek. You can choose one of eight color schemes, including light and dark modes to respect your eyes day and night.

The fact that you can build apps and set up your own automation makes Budibase quite flexible, especially considering the (non-existent) price point for self-hosting. It's trusted by big companies like Netflix, Tesla, and Google—you'll be in great company if you choose Budibase to build your internal toolkit.

Budibase price: Free when self-hosted for core features. Premium plan for running it on the Budibase cloud starts at $60/creator/month and $6/app user/month.

Best internal tool builder for extending with code

Retool (easy low-code for basic features, full-code for advanced features)

Retool pros:

• Builds workflows, web, and mobile apps

• Database management features available

Retool cons:

• Editor slows down while building complex apps

Retool is a comprehensive tool, covering lots of possibilities on one single platform. Building the UI is mostly a no-code experience, and displaying data and binding a few actions are still doable for non-technical users, too, since the SQL queries involved aren't hard to understand. But Retool gets interesting when you use JavaScript to create more powerful actions.

The way Retool thinks about UI makes sense—the components were optimized for quick interaction and offering deep functionality. If you love dashboards with lots of data and plenty of buttons to control operations in real time, Retool definitely supports those mega-pages. If you don't, Retool introduced multi-page apps last year, so you can divide functionality across browser tabs, potentially improving performance for very complex apps.

It's easy to integrate AI into your workflows with Retool. Not just GPT: you can bring any other AI model into the mix, be it Anthropic's Claude, Microsoft Azure's Cognitive Services, or the AI model you've been training in Hugging Face. Bring your API key and start cooking. For more complex tasks, Retool now has AI agents in beta, helping you wire up machine intelligence, business logic, and your data: templates include AI competition scanners and automated fraudulent chargeback fighters, to mention two out of eight templates available.

While it feels like a tool that shines in the hands of backend engineers—the people who handle the invisible processes behind apps and web services—you can still build a few simple apps without having to write code. It definitely depends on how comfortable you are with trial and error and tinkering. Try it out to get a feel of the difficulty if you're interested in Retool's features as a whole.

Retool is a highly flexible low-code tool, trusted by big clients such as Amazon and OpenAI. If you have coders and IT people to set it up, you'll be able to wire up apps for any use case—including edge use cases—in a shorter amount of time.

Retool price: Free plan available. Team plan at $12/standard user/month and $7/end user/month.

Best enterprise internal app builder

OutSystems (full-code)

OutSystems pros:

• Very robust

• Customizable integration with existing platforms and data

OutSystems cons:

• Tough learning curve for semi-technical people

OutSystems brands itself as a low-code platform. If you're a developer, that's definitely true. If you're a non-technical user, it's going to be hard to leverage everything this platform has to offer.

OutSystems works at the enterprise-grade level, offering a scalable and reliable infrastructure for companies that are already working with multiple platforms. Each new app that you create gets its own development environment, running its own analytics and logging engines, enabling all the tools that you need to actually create the app. Once you publish it, this platform will convert everything in the editor into high-performance code and create separate instances for all the services required to run it.

This provides some level of isolation between apps, giving you more control over data and logic. You can choose to connect OutSystems apps to one another at the platform level and even with external integrations, so you can work with data inside OutSystems or part of your data pool.

To start creating an app, you'll need to create an account online and download the desktop app, the OutSystems Service Studio. This editor feels almost like a crossover between a low-code app and an integrated development environment (IDE) like Visual Studio. The right tab has a files-and-folders view for everything inside your app, from visual elements to scripts. The debugging features include precise controls to run your app step-by-step, helping you fix unintended behavior.

OutSystems ranks highly in both Gartner and Forrester's studies, slightly outpacing its closest competitor Mendix (which you can check out for comparison). The first app you build is free, but beyond that, pricing starts at $36,300 per year, making this platform a much better fit for bigger businesses with huge pain points in their digital infrastructure.

OutSystems price: First app is free. Paid plans start at $36,300/year.

What is the best internal tool builder?

Internal tool builders are the answer to the question "is there a way we can do this faster and with fewer mistakes?" Yes, there is. Connect your data sources, build an interface, set up the logic, and get more done with less effort, in less time.

There are apps on this list for every type of user: beginners who are just learning what no-code means, tech-savvy people who have a good mental picture of how apps work, and IT professionals who want to add their own code and keep an eye on security and performance. Take the internal tool builder that best matches your needs and skill level for a ride, and see how it can simplify your work.

Related reading:

• Stop paying for software you can build yourself

• How to create a lead capture form with Zapier Interfaces

• Why pairing AI with automation will change how you work

• The best AI app builders

• The best code editors

• Use Firecrawl MCP to take action in your AI tools

Who should be able to build automations? Just IT, or everyone who needs them? It's a surprisingly philosophical question for enterprise decision-makers. Give IT the reins, and you get more control but risk bottlenecks as the rest of the organization waits on developer support. Let everyone create automations, and you get more innovation and faster deployments, but you have to extend more trust to your team.

This is the fundamental difference between Workato and Zapier. With sophisticated low-code integration capabilities, Workato is designed for IT teams to build automations for their organizations. Zapier provides no-code tools that let anyone—from sales managers to HR coordinators—deploy their own automations, AI agents, and chatbots in minutes.

Choosing between them is only partly a question of comparing features. You also need to consider a bigger question: will you take a top-down or a bottom-up approach to deploying automation and AI? 

Here's a full comparison of Zapier and Workato so you can decide which approach fits your enterprise.

Table of contents:

• Workato vs. Zapier at a glance

• Zapier is a no-code tool that can be used by your entire team; Workato is built for heavy-duty integration for IT

• Zapier's AI is easier to deploy

• Workato's automations can take weeks of development, while new Zapier automations can be launched in hours

• Zapier connects with 6-7x more apps than Workato

• Zapier is far more affordable than Workato

• Workato vs. Zapier: Which platform is right for you?

Workato vs. Zapier at a glance

Here's a quick summary, but keep reading for more details.

Zapier is a no-code tool that can be used by your entire team; Workato is built for heavy-duty integration for IT

Zapier lets you do a lot, quickly, without the IT bottleneck. It's accessible, fast to implement, and democratizes automation across your organization without heavy cost or complexity. As a no-code tool, Zapier empowers non-technical teams to spin up and manage their own automations quickly, lowering the barrier to entry for automation projects that might never make an IT backlog.

Workato, by contrast, is a low-code enterprise iPaaS tool built primarily for IT teams and developers. It's more accessible than some other iPaaS platforms: you can delegate automation-building authority to roles Workato calls "citizen integrators," who are typically business analysts or technical business subject matter experts. While you can allow non-technical business users to create automations and integrations, the platform isn't designed with their needs in mind—so there's a strong chance they'll need developer support anyway.

With Zapier, anyone can build anything. For example, your sales manager can use Zapier Copilot to create automations by simply describing what they want, like "Advance a lead's stage automatically when they reply."

From there, Copilot asks a few clarifying questions, designs a workflow, and gives your team next steps to finalize and publish the automation.

Workato recently launched AIRO, a copilot that lets you generate automations (or "recipes") using a text prompt. It's a big improvement on the old manual process, but it's still largely geared toward empowering technical users to do their work faster.

Zapier's AI is easier to deploy

While Workato's AI copilot tool is limited to workflow generation, Zapier Copilot goes further. Anyone in your organization can use Copilot to build sophisticated agents, chatbots, process maps, databases, interfaces, and custom actions—all by simply describing their ideas.

Zapier makes it much easier to take a "bottom up" approach to deploying AI throughout your organization. If your sales team is struggling with meeting prep, for example, they can easily design their own Zapier Agent to handle pre-meeting research and agendas.

For more complex tasks that require supervision, you can add human-in-the-loop workflows that pause for approval at critical moments. And Zapier comes with an enterprise admin center that tracks organization-wide AI activity, giving you complete visibility over every action.

Workato offers a powerful set of AI features and impressive governance capabilities too. Its pre-built enterprise AI agents (or "Genies") can automatically handle certain responsibilities like IT support chats, CRM updates, and interview scheduling. For example, Workato's Campaign Genie can automatically test, optimize, and deliver outbound email campaigns. You can also create your own custom agents using Agent Studio, a low-code tool that brings together knowledge bases, chat interfaces, and LLMs.

Still, Workato can't compete with Zapier's ease of deployment and accessibility to anyone in the organization. It's also missing a chatbot builder. Zapier Chatbots allow you to customize and train chatbots, then embed them into websites, portals, or internal systems to handle tasks like customer service and IT support.

Workato's automations can take weeks of development, while new Zapier automations can be launched in hours

Launching a basic automation with Workato is fairly straightforward, but for anything complex, you can often expect weeks or months of development. And that's assuming your developers have time to schedule your requests right away rather than putting you in the queue.

Waiting to deploy your automations is more than just an inconvenience:

• Your team can't experiment and iterate freely if every request requires dev support.

• When your business processes change, workflows need to be updated immediately.

• Sometimes you need a solution now rather than waiting in the IT queue for months.

Zapier makes it easy for non-technical users to deploy and adjust complex automations without waiting for development support. Korey Marciniak, Senior Manager of Customer Support Strategy and Operations at Okta, says this is a key reason Zapier is so useful for his team:

"Support needs can't be resolved in a year-long project. If a project takes a couple of sprints, you miss your window."

Workato is a sophisticated automation tool and can add real value for IT teams. But the non-technical members of your team need automation solutions too, and asking them to use IT as an intermediary for all their needs is a recipe for backlogs and missed opportunities.

Zapier connects with 6-7x more apps than Workato

Zapier's biggest strength is its massive app library consisting of more than 8,000 apps, including many niche SaaS tools not covered elsewhere. That means with Zapier, you can connect nearly any enterprise app you can think of out-of-the-box without dealing with custom connections or manual API updates.

Whether you need to connect data from big hitters like Salesforce, NetSuite, and Workday, or more niche apps that are hyper-specific to your industry and role, Zapier can handle it. Plus, it automatically updates the connection when APIs change.

Workato connects with a much smaller selection of around 1,200 apps. While it offers deep connections with big tools like Salesforce, NetSuite, and SAP, it doesn't offer built-in integrations for nearly as many niche enterprise apps. That means you're more likely to need custom workarounds to connect all your tools. And while you can create custom connectors yourself, that comes with downsides: more time (and cost) to set up integrations, monitor API changelogs, and test and deploy updates yourself.

Zapier is far more affordable than Workato

Workato is a premium-priced enterprise software. Even entry-level usage usually exceeds $1,000/month, and mid-tier Workato deployments can easily run into six figures annually. And if you want to demo the software to understand whether it meets your needs, you need to go through a sales engagement process.

Zapier takes the opposite approach. Enterprises can grow their usage organically rather than committing to a large spend upfront. You can start free with 100 tasks per month to experience firsthand how Zapier handles your use cases and automations, and upgrade to paid plans that start at $19.99/month with predictable, linear scaling as you increase usage. Once you're ready to talk to the sales team, you can get a custom quote for your needs.

Workato also comes with another cost: implementation time. Zapier lets you make an account and create automations immediately, which means your team can benefit from automation-driven efficiencies right away. That time to deployment is part of the overall cost savings.

Workato vs. Zapier: Which platform is right for you?

Choosing between Zapier and Workato requires you to first understand your IT bandwidth, your budget, and whether you prefer a top-down or bottom-up approach to AI and automation. 

Keep these considerations in mind as you decide which platform to go with.

Choose Zapier if:

• You need to integrate all your enterprise apps

• You want to empower non-technical users to deploy their own automations and AI agents

• You prefer accessible pricing that scales up predictably based on usage

• You want to avoid IT bottlenecks

Choose Workato if:

• Your IT team has the bandwidth to handle automation requests from other teams

• You have processes that require low-code technical expertise

• Premium enterprise pricing fits your budget from day one

If you want to see how Zapier could fit into your automation strategy, connect with the Zapier team for a consultation. Or create an account and start building right now.

Related reading:

• Zapier vs. n8n: Which is best?

• Zapier vs. Make: Which is best?

• Zapier for enterprise automation: Scaling automation on a trusted platform

An eCommerce brand selling handcrafted products had a problem: fulfilling orders quickly and accurately was harder than it should’ve been.

Each new order brought messy product data buried in descriptions, which someone on the team had to read, interpret, and manually reformat before work could begin. It was tedious, time-consuming, and left too much room for error.

"There was no reason a human needed to touch that data," said Nathan Weill, founder and CEO of Flow Digital. "It just wasn’t scalable. Zapier made it easy to reimagine how that work got done."

With help from Flow Digital, a Zapier Solution Partner, the company went from patching a single broken workflow to deploying an AI-powered automation system that cleans and syncs order data in real time, giving the team time back and unlocking faster fulfillment for customers.

The challenge: Manual cleanup was slowing everything down

The team uses Shopify to manage sales and Monday.com to coordinate production, but there was no structured connection between the two. Important order details, like metal type or product size, were hidden in long-form product descriptions. Since the production team worked in Monday.com, someone had to manually extract and reformat the data before fulfillment could begin.

It was a classic case of square peg, round hole: Shopify wasn’t designed for internal operations, and the fulfillment team wasn’t equipped to parse marketing-friendly product copy into manufacturable instructions.

They initially tackled the problem with a simple Zap, but ran into challenges with inconsistent inputs. That’s when they brought in Flow Digital, expecting a quick fix, and walking away with a powerful, long-term solution.

The solution: A fully automated, AI-powered order flow built to scale

Flow Digital rebuilt the entire workflow using Zapier and AI. The new system automatically extracts the details production teams need and formats them into structured data, without anyone lifting a finger.

Here’s how it works:

• Trigger: Every time a new paid order comes through Shopify, the Zap begins.

• Looping: Zapier loops through each line item in the order.

• AI parsing: Zapier AI reads the product description, identifies the material (e.g., metal type) and size, and maps it to a predefined list. If nothing applies, it returns a blank for clarity.

• Structured output: The clean, consistent data is sent straight to Monday.com, formatted and ready for the production team to act on.

This approach not only solved the original issue, it allows the team to import and clean historical data by temporarily increasing task volume, without changing the core setup.

"It used to require custom development just to do this kind of data cleanup," said Moshe Gotfryd, Automation Specialist at Flow Digital. "Now we do it in three steps using AI inside Zapier."

The result: Clean data, real-time orders, and a team that can move fast

The team no longer needs to manually review product descriptions, convert measurements, or reformat order data. Every order, whether it’s from yesterday or five minutes ago, flows through the automation and lands in Monday.com, ready for fulfillment.

With this new workflow, the business:

• Eliminated manual parsing and rework

• Saved multiple hours per week across operations and fulfillment

• Reduced errors caused by inconsistent or incomplete data

• Accelerated fulfillment with real-time, structured order handoffs

Results Snapshot (March vs. June):

• Monthly revenue up by 128.58%

• Orders up by 54.62%

• Processed nearly 3,000 orders

• Automated the handling of over 26,000 line items

What started as a fix for one Zap turned into a scalable infrastructure that saves time and reduces stress every single day. With the right setup, the team no longer second-guesses what data is coming in or how it will flow to production.

"They didn’t just want automation, they needed confidence that things wouldn’t break at scale. Zapier delivered that," said Nathan.

With AI-enhanced automations powering daily operations, the team can now focus on what matters: delivering beautiful, high-quality products on time and at scale to their customers.

Evan Nison has been automating business processes since the early days of IFTTT and Zapier. As the founder of NisonCo, a PR and SEO agency that recently expanded into AI consulting, Evan has always looked for ways to eliminate manual work and scale operations efficiently.

"We started literally with IFTTT way back in the day," Evan said. "I would create different Gmail accounts that I could forward emails to as triggers for different Zaps. When AI started coming out, I obviously got very into that from an automation standpoint."

Today, NisonCo runs dozens of Zapier Agents across multiple accounts, handling everything from lead generation to client onboarding. But when Zapier MCP launched, Evan saw an opportunity to take automation to the next level.

Challenge: Connecting AI intelligence to business systems

Despite being an automation expert and AI enthusiast, Evan faced a common problem: he wanted to give AI tools like Claude access to his business systems, but lacked the technical expertise to build custom integrations.

"I'm very good with AI, but as soon as I get to GitHub, I’m not always sure what my next step is," Evan said. "Any MCP server that's hosted on GitHub or doesn't have an HTTP URL is over my head. That's where Zapier has been the best for filling that gap."

The challenge was particularly acute when trying to integrate AI with proprietary business data and specialized tools that don't have native AI integrations.

Solution: Zapier MCP as the Universal Connector

Zapier MCP became Evan's bridge between Claude AI and his entire business ecosystem. As one of the first MCP servers available, it allowed him to connect Claude to any of Zapier's 8,000 app integrations without writing code.

Here's some of the key ways Evan uses it:

1. Automated Client Onboarding: When a client signs a contract, the system analyzes the signed DocuSign document, extracts client information, and creates a QuickBooks customer record, all before Evan even notifies his bookkeeper.

2. Enhanced Content Creation: "When writing blogs, I use it to reference documents, calls, or emails to add authority and personal experience," Evan said. He recently wrote a blog about MCP servers, then had Claude review internal team calls, emails, and Google Docs to weave their personal experiences into the content, making it significantly more valuable.

3. SEO Account Management: The team is building an MCP-powered SEO workflow that connects SEMrush, Google Analytics, and Search Console data. This allows Claude to understand complete client context from calls and research, then make data-driven recommendations and create new documents automatically.

4. Lead Generation Enhancement Building on existing Zapier Agent workflows, Evan uses MCP to enhance lead qualification by giving Claude access to CRM data, email history, and research documents for more intelligent lead scoring and outreach.

Results: From manual tasks to strategic focus

The integration of Zapier MCP has transformed how NisonCo operates:

• Reduced Manual Work: Client onboarding tasks that previously required manual data entry now happen automatically

• Enhanced Content Quality: Blog posts and reports now incorporate rich, contextual business data

• Faster Decision Making: Account managers can access comprehensive client data through natural language queries

• Scalable Processes: Workflows that previously required human oversight can now run autonomously

Looking Ahead: The future of AI-powered business operations

Evan's vision extends beyond current implementations. He's planning custom applications combining deterministic workflows with AI intelligence, all powered by Zapier MCP.

"The short-term future for us is custom apps that do a lot of our workflow with MCP servers working with AI," he said. "AI-powered custom apps with hard-coded workflows and MCP integrations."

His next major project: an SEO management system that automatically creates three-month roadmaps by analyzing client calls, accessing SEO tools through MCP, and generating actionable recommendations, requiring only human approval before execution.

"There's always going to be niches that people like me just want an MCP for, and we can't figure out how to build it ourselves," said Evan. “That's where Zapier MCP makes sense, even as more native integrations become available."

Evan's advice for others looking to implement Zapier MCP: "Start with simple use cases that you're already automating with regular Zapier workflows, then gradually add AI intelligence through MCP. The authentication is very easy with Claude, much easier than trying to build custom integrations."

For businesses ready to bridge the gap between AI capabilities and existing systems, Zapier MCP offers a proven path forward, as demonstrated by Evan's transformation from automation expert to AI-powered business operations pioneer.

An eCommerce brand selling handcrafted products had a problem: fulfilling orders quickly and accurately was harder than it should’ve been.

Each new order brought messy product data buried in descriptions, which someone on the team had to read, interpret, and manually reformat before work could begin. It was tedious, time-consuming, and left too much room for error.

"There was no reason a human needed to touch that data," said Nathan Weill, founder and CEO of Flow Digital. "It just wasn’t scalable. Zapier made it easy to reimagine how that work got done."

With help from Flow Digital, a Zapier Solution Partner, the company went from patching a single broken workflow to deploying an AI-powered automation system that cleans and syncs order data in real time, giving the team time back and unlocking faster fulfillment for customers.

The challenge: Manual cleanup was slowing everything down

The team uses Shopify to manage sales and Monday.com to coordinate production, but there was no structured connection between the two. Important order details, like metal type or product size, were hidden in long-form product descriptions. Since the production team worked in Monday.com, someone had to manually extract and reformat the data before fulfillment could begin.

It was a classic case of square peg, round hole: Shopify wasn’t designed for internal operations, and the fulfillment team wasn’t equipped to parse marketing-friendly product copy into manufacturable instructions.

They initially tackled the problem with a simple Zap, but ran into challenges with inconsistent inputs. That’s when they brought in Flow Digital, expecting a quick fix, and walking away with a powerful, long-term solution.

The solution: A fully automated, AI-powered order flow built to scale

Flow Digital rebuilt the entire workflow using Zapier and AI. The new system automatically extracts the details production teams need and formats them into structured data, without anyone lifting a finger.

Here’s how it works:

• Trigger: Every time a new paid order comes through Shopify, the Zap begins.

• Looping: Zapier loops through each line item in the order.

• AI parsing: Zapier AI reads the product description, identifies the material (e.g., metal type) and size, and maps it to a predefined list. If nothing applies, it returns a blank for clarity.

• Structured output: The clean, consistent data is sent straight to Monday.com, formatted and ready for the production team to act on.

This approach not only solved the original issue, it allows the team to import and clean historical data by temporarily increasing task volume, without changing the core setup.

"It used to require custom development just to do this kind of data cleanup," said Moshe Gotfryd, Automation Specialist at Flow Digital. "Now we do it in three steps using AI inside Zapier."

The result: Clean data, real-time orders, and a team that can move fast

The team no longer needs to manually review product descriptions, convert measurements, or reformat order data. Every order, whether it’s from yesterday or five minutes ago, flows through the automation and lands in Monday.com, ready for fulfillment.

With this new workflow, the business:

• Eliminated manual parsing and rework

• Saved multiple hours per week across operations and fulfillment

• Reduced errors caused by inconsistent or incomplete data

• Accelerated fulfillment with real-time, structured order handoffs

Results Snapshot (March vs. June):

• Monthly revenue up by 128.58%

• Orders up by 54.62%

• Processed nearly 3,000 orders

• Automated the handling of over 26,000 line items

What started as a fix for one Zap turned into a scalable infrastructure that saves time and reduces stress every single day. With the right setup, the team no longer second-guesses what data is coming in or how it will flow to production.

"They didn’t just want automation, they needed confidence that things wouldn’t break at scale. Zapier delivered that," said Nathan.

With AI-enhanced automations powering daily operations, the team can now focus on what matters: delivering beautiful, high-quality products on time and at scale to their customers.

Evan Nison has been automating business processes since the early days of IFTTT and Zapier. As the founder of NisonCo, a PR and SEO agency that recently expanded into AI consulting, Evan has always looked for ways to eliminate manual work and scale operations efficiently.

"We started literally with IFTTT way back in the day," Evan said. "I would create different Gmail accounts that I could forward emails to as triggers for different Zaps. When AI started coming out, I obviously got very into that from an automation standpoint."

Today, NisonCo runs dozens of Zapier Agents across multiple accounts, handling everything from lead generation to client onboarding. But when Zapier MCP launched, Evan saw an opportunity to take automation to the next level.

Challenge: Connecting AI intelligence to business systems

Despite being an automation expert and AI enthusiast, Evan faced a common problem: he wanted to give AI tools like Claude access to his business systems, but lacked the technical expertise to build custom integrations.

"I'm very good with AI, but as soon as I get to GitHub, I’m not always sure what my next step is," Evan said. "Any MCP server that's hosted on GitHub or doesn't have an HTTP URL is over my head. That's where Zapier has been the best for filling that gap."

The challenge was particularly acute when trying to integrate AI with proprietary business data and specialized tools that don't have native AI integrations.

Solution: Zapier MCP as the Universal Connector

Zapier MCP became Evan's bridge between Claude AI and his entire business ecosystem. As one of the first MCP servers available, it allowed him to connect Claude to any of Zapier's 8,000 app integrations without writing code.

Here's some of the key ways Evan uses it:

1. Automated Client Onboarding: When a client signs a contract, the system analyzes the signed DocuSign document, extracts client information, and creates a QuickBooks customer record, all before Evan even notifies his bookkeeper.

2. Enhanced Content Creation: "When writing blogs, I use it to reference documents, calls, or emails to add authority and personal experience," Evan said. He recently wrote a blog about MCP servers, then had Claude review internal team calls, emails, and Google Docs to weave their personal experiences into the content, making it significantly more valuable.

3. SEO Account Management: The team is building an MCP-powered SEO workflow that connects SEMrush, Google Analytics, and Search Console data. This allows Claude to understand complete client context from calls and research, then make data-driven recommendations and create new documents automatically.

4. Lead Generation Enhancement Building on existing Zapier Agent workflows, Evan uses MCP to enhance lead qualification by giving Claude access to CRM data, email history, and research documents for more intelligent lead scoring and outreach.

Results: From manual tasks to strategic focus

The integration of Zapier MCP has transformed how NisonCo operates:

• Reduced Manual Work: Client onboarding tasks that previously required manual data entry now happen automatically

• Enhanced Content Quality: Blog posts and reports now incorporate rich, contextual business data

• Faster Decision Making: Account managers can access comprehensive client data through natural language queries

• Scalable Processes: Workflows that previously required human oversight can now run autonomously

Looking Ahead: The future of AI-powered business operations

Evan's vision extends beyond current implementations. He's planning custom applications combining deterministic workflows with AI intelligence, all powered by Zapier MCP.

"The short-term future for us is custom apps that do a lot of our workflow with MCP servers working with AI," he said. "AI-powered custom apps with hard-coded workflows and MCP integrations."

His next major project: an SEO management system that automatically creates three-month roadmaps by analyzing client calls, accessing SEO tools through MCP, and generating actionable recommendations, requiring only human approval before execution.

"There's always going to be niches that people like me just want an MCP for, and we can't figure out how to build it ourselves," said Evan. “That's where Zapier MCP makes sense, even as more native integrations become available."

Evan's advice for others looking to implement Zapier MCP: "Start with simple use cases that you're already automating with regular Zapier workflows, then gradually add AI intelligence through MCP. The authentication is very easy with Claude, much easier than trying to build custom integrations."

For businesses ready to bridge the gap between AI capabilities and existing systems, Zapier MCP offers a proven path forward, as demonstrated by Evan's transformation from automation expert to AI-powered business operations pioneer.

Telling employees you're "all in" on AI is one thing. Knowing whether it's actually being used—and creating impact—is another. If you don't track adoption, you risk falling into the trap of vanity wins: a few flashy pilot projects that never make their way into day-to-day work.

To avoid that, you need clear, consistent ways to measure AI adoption. That means tracking both how widely employees are using AI and how deeply it's embedded into workflows across teams so you can be sure you're not mistaking hype for impact.

Here are four practical ways to measure AI adoption across your organization. 

Table of contents:

• Percentage of active employee usage 

• Number of AI workflows deployed

• Number of AI experiments launched 

• Rates of completion for AI training

1. Percentage of active employee usage 

One of the easiest and most telling ways to measure AI adoption is to look at the percentage of employees actively using AI tools to help them work faster and better. If the number's high, you know AI has officially made it out of the fun side project category and into actual day-to-day work. If it's low, you may still be in the phase where everyone thinks it's cute that ChatGPT can write haikus. 

Of course, "high" and "low" are all relative and context-dependent. When Zapier first started tracking active AI adoption rates in late 2023, it came in at 63%. By the end of 2024, that number climbed to 77%. And more recently, it was hovering at 97%. So rather than benchmarking against some arbitrary percentage dictated by the internet, define what "high" means for your company and track your progress over time. The trend line matters more than the absolute number.

How to measure: 

• Monthly pulse surveys: Incorporate specific questions into your existing team surveys—like "Which AI tools did you use for work this week?" with checkboxes for tools you've made available to your team. At Zapier, we included this question in our employee engagement surveys.

• AI analytics dashboards: Most AI tools have admin dashboards that show active users, session frequency, and usage patterns. It's like checking your screen time report, but less depressing (hopefully). This is why enterprise accounts are valuable: they give you another lens on who's actually using AI—not just talking about it in Slack. For example, here's what an admin dashboard for Zapier looks like. 

  

2. Number of AI workflows deployed

I could use ChatGPT every day to mock up images of my dog in different Halloween outfits—all in the name of testing its AI-image generation capabilities, of course—and that would technically count as active AI usage. But as much as it pains me to say it, seeing a hound dog dressed as a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs doesn't exactly support the business. 

That's why it's important to go beyond just measuring who's logging in to AI tools. A clearer signal of adoption is the number of AI workflows actually deployed. Workflows are where experimentation turns into lasting value—automating lead routing in sales, drafting customer support replies, or streamlining reporting in ops. Tracking these workflows by department also helps you see where AI has become part of everyday operations and where there's still room to grow.

How to measure:

• Centralized AI registry: Keep a single source of truth where leaders can log new AI use cases. It makes it easier to track growth over time and spot which departments are leaning in.

• Self-reporting mechanisms: Build measurement into the tools teams already use. For example, set up a Slack bot that prompts employees to share which AI workflows they used that week. It's lightweight, quick, and captures activity that might otherwise fly under the radar.

3. Number of AI experiments launched

Experiments show that employees aren't just learning about AI—they're actively testing how it fits into real problems and workflows.

You don't need to log every tiny test, but keeping a pulse on how many experiments are launched each quarter gives you a sense of momentum. If the number is rising, adoption is spreading. If it's flat or declining, it may be time to step in with more training, better tooling, or fresh inspiration. Over time, you can also track how many experiments graduate into full workflows. That transition—from test to scaled process—is a strong marker of sustainable adoption.

How to measure:

• Project management tags: Use tags like "AI experiment" in project management tools to easily track and filter AI-related pilots.

• Hackathon participation: If you run internal hackathons or innovation weeks, track the number of AI-focused projects submitted. These events are a natural breeding ground for experiments. You can also set up a way to follow up on hackathon experiments: how many of them develop into consistent AI usage?

4. Rates of completion for AI training 

Rolling out AI tools without training is like handing someone a power drill without explaining how and when to change the bits. Sure, they'll figure out how to turn it on. But will they know you have to flip it into reverse to swap out the flathead bit for the hole saw attachment that lets you carve a perfect circle through drywall? Speaking from experience, absolutely not. Instead, they'll keep drilling sad little holes and wonder why it's taking forever.

That's why tracking completion rates for your AI training programs matters. It's a simple way to see whether people are engaging with the resources you've put in place.

How to measure:

• Learning management systems (LMS): Most LMS platforms have built-in reporting dashboards. They'll tell you exactly who completed training, how long it took, and where people dropped off. (If you notice everyone bailing halfway through Module 3, that's not on them—that's a signal to rework Module 3.)

• Post-training surveys: A quick survey right after training helps you gauge whether employees found it useful. Ask questions like, "Do you feel confident applying what you learned to your work?" It adds color to the raw completion data.

Make measurement part of the culture

Measuring AI adoption isn't about adding more bureaucracy or creating dashboards no one looks at. It's about understanding whether AI is making its way into the daily rhythm of your business—and that it's driving real value, not just hype. 

That starts with giving teams the right tools to experiment and build. If employees are stuck juggling disconnected apps or shadow AI tools, you'll never get a clear read on what's working.

Zapier lets you orchestrate sophisticated, multi-step AI workflows across your tech stack—tying together data, automations, and approvals in a way that scales across departments. That visibility makes it easier to see how AI is being adopted, and where it's having an impact.

Start simple: track usage, workflows, experiments, and training. Then use those insights to double down on what's working and adapt where needed. Over time, these metrics give you a living picture of how AI is embedding into your culture so measurement isn't an afterthought, but part of how you grow.

Related reading: 

• AI integration: How to bring AI into your workflows

• AI in the workplace: 5 ways to adapt to AI at work

• What is enterprise AI? And how to implement it

• AI metrics: 6 ways to measure AI performance

• The AI tools graveyard: How it happens and how to prevent it

When I'm "just window-shopping" for that overpriced espresso machine I absolutely don't need, the little chatbot that pops up in the corner of the screen can feel a bit much. But when I actually have a question—like if it comes in matte black or ships in time for the holidays—that same bot suddenly becomes my favorite feature on the site.

That's the power of an eCommerce chatbot. Done right, it's a helpful, on-brand assistant that guides shoppers, answers questions, and keeps the buying experience smooth. And with Zapier, you can build a fully customized one that's powered by your product data and connected to the rest of your tools.

In this guide, I'll explain what an eCommerce chatbot is, why it's worth building one, and how to set one up step by step in Zapier.

Skip ahead

• What is an eCommerce chatbot?

• Why you need a chatbot for eCommerce

• Example use cases for eCommerce chatbots

• How to build a chatbot for eCommerce

What is an eCommerce chatbot?

An eCommerce chatbot is a virtual shopping assistant that helps customers get what they need. Instead of clicking through menus or waiting for a human to respond, a customer can ask the chatbot, "Where's my order?" or "Do you have this in blue?" and get an instant answer.

Think of it as your store's always-on concierge. It's not replacing your customer support team—it's freeing them up. A well-built eCommerce chatbot can track orders, recommend products, answer FAQs, and even hand things off to a human when needed. It's a seamless way to reduce abandoned carts and keep shoppers engaged 24/7, even as your business scales.

Why you need a chatbot for eCommerce

The obvious benefit of an eCommerce chatbot is time savings—for both your customers and your support team. Shoppers don't have to wait for a live agent to check order status or answer sizing questions, and your team doesn't have to field the same "When will this ship?" question over and over again.

But the impact goes far beyond efficiency:

• Fewer lost sales. When a shopper hits a snag—whether it's confusion about a return policy or trouble finding the right product—a chatbot can jump in and keep the purchase on track.

• Consistent answers. A chatbot gives brand-aligned responses every time. No mixed messages or misinterpreted policies.

• 24/7 availability. Your store never sleeps, and neither does your chatbot. It can handle requests from night owls, international customers, and last-minute shoppers at all hours.

• Scalability. As your business grows, support demand will too. A chatbot can handle hundreds of conversations at once—without adding headcount.

• Better customer experiences. Quick, helpful responses make customers feel taken care of—and more likely to come back.

At the end of the day, an eCommerce chatbot keeps customers engaged, reduces friction in the buying process, and gives your team more time to focus on high-impact work.

Example use cases for eCommerce chatbots

A well-designed chatbot can do a lot more than just answer basic questions. Here are a few ways you can use one to elevate your online store experience:

• Answer customer questions. From "How much is shipping" to "What's your return policy," a customer service chatbot can handle FAQs so your team doesn't have to.

• Give real-time inventory updates. Let customers know if a product is in stock, low on inventory, or available in a different size or color.

• Offer promotions and discounts. Trigger custom offers based on user behavior—like sharing a discount code when someone lingers on a product page.

• Give personalized product suggestions. Recommend items based on what a shopper is browsing or has in their cart, just like an in-store associate might.

• Assist with order tracking. Shoppers can ask, "Where's my order?" and get an instant update without digging through emails.

• Recover abandoned carts. Nudge customers who added items to their cart but didn't check out. Sometimes all they need is a reminder (or a promo code).

• Collect feedback. After a purchase, your chatbot can ask how things went and gather insights to help you improve the customer experience.

With Zapier, you can even build a chatbot that goes beyond basic interactions. Connect it to over 8,000 apps to trigger advanced workflows—like logging a support ticket in your help desk tool, updating inventory in your eCommerce platform, or sending a Slack alert to your team when a VIP customer reaches out.

How to build a chatbot for eCommerce

We'll use a template in this example, so you can let Zapier build the chatbot for you by clicking Try it below. You can also check out our chatbot template library for even more ready-to-use workflows you can customize to your team's needs.

If you'd rather create a chatbot from scratch, visit your chatbot dashboard and click +Create at the top-right corner of your screen. Or just type chatbots.new into your browser bar and get started from there.

For more in-depth instructions on building a chatbot from scratch, see our guide to building a custom AI chatbot.

Customize the chatbot's instructions

Once you've opened the eCommerce chatbot template, you'll see three panels in the builder. The left and middle panels are where you'll configure the chatbot's behavior—things like its instructions, connected data sources, and overall tone. The right-hand panel is your live preview, so you can test as you go and see how the bot responds as you make changes.

The template comes pre-filled with a sample greeting and instructions tailored for eCommerce use cases. Feel free to customize them to match your store's voice and customer needs. The more specific and thoughtful your instructions, the better your chatbot will perform.

For best results, include key details in your instructions, like:

• The chatbot's role and goal (like helping online shoppers find what they need and guiding them through the buying process)

• The steps it should always follow (for example, asking for product preferences before recommending items)

• Who the chatbot is talking to (like first-time customers, returning buyers, or wholesale clients)

• Any business context it needs to answer questions well (shipping policies, return windows, current promotions, etc.)

• Where it should pull answers from (like product pages, FAQs, and help center content)

• The tone and style of its responses (friendly and casual or professional and to-the-point)

• Any special rules or boundaries (for example, "don't offer discounts unless prompted" or "always hand off to support if the customer asks about billing")

As you tweak your chatbot's prompt and instructions, you can test it in the right-hand panel to see how it responds to different types of customer questions. This is where you'll make sure your chatbot feels helpful, on-brand, and ready for the virtual sales floor.

Connect your store's resources so your chatbot gives the right answers

One of the best things about building your eCommerce chatbot with Zapier is that you don't have to rely on generic AI answers. Instead, you can feed it your own content—like product info, policies, and FAQs—so it always responds with accurate, brand-approved information.

Once connected, your chatbot will only generate answers based on the materials you've added. For an eCommerce chatbot, that might mean uploading your shipping policy PDF, linking to your returns page, and creating a table with common product questions (like "What's the difference between Model A and Model B?" or "Do you offer gift wrapping?").

That way, your chatbot has a solid foundation to work from—one that scales with your store.

Here's how to connect your knowledge sources:

1. In the chatbot builder, open the Knowledge tab in the left panel. Click + Add your first knowledge source.

2. Choose the type of source you want to add:

• Webpage: Paste the link to a product or policy page and choose whether to scan subpages.

• Upload File: Add a PDF or other static doc from your computer (up to 2MB)

• Zapier Table: Select an existing table or create one on the spot for structured data.

• Notion or Google Docs: Connect your account and pick a document from the dropdown.

If you're linking to a resource that updates often—like a pricing page or a seasonal catalog—you can even set up automatic daily, weekly, or monthly syncs to keep your chatbot's knowledge fresh without any manual upkeep.

Once connected, your eCommerce chatbot becomes a true extension of your store, ready to guide shoppers with the most accurate, up-to-date information.

Add logic and actions to your chatbot

Your eCommerce chatbot can do more than just answer customer questions—it can take action based on the logic rules you define. This is where your chatbot starts feeling less like a FAQ page and more like a smart sales or support assistant.

For example, you might want your chatbot to:

• Collect a shopper's contact info so you can follow up with a discount or back-in-stock alert

• Send a Slack notification to your team when a customer asks about a high-value product or mentions a negative experience

• Create a task in your CRM or help desk when someone needs hands-on support

• Tag a customer in your email platform when they show interest in a specific product category

To build in this kind of functionality, open the Logic tab in the left-hand panel of the chatbot builder. From there, you can define rules like:

• If the customer asks about shipping times, offer them the shipping policy link.

• If someone mentions a problem with their order, route the conversation to a human.

• If a shopper gives their email, add them to a "VIP early access" list in your marketing platform.

This turns your chatbot from a passive responder into a proactive assistant who's ready to support, alert, and automate in real time.

A great example of chatbot logic in action comes from Learn It Live, an online education platform that used Zapier to build a chatbot powered by a dynamic knowledge base. Their small team connected the chatbot to a Zapier Table filled with FAQ content. The bot could instantly respond with accurate answers—and when more help was needed, it triggered a Slack alert or logged a support ticket automatically. As a result, their team has seen a 40% drop in support tickets (and a lot more breathing room).

Integrate your eCommerce chatbot with other apps

Your customers don't need to interact with your chatbot only on its standalone page. With the Zapier Chatbots integration in the Zap editor, you can connect your eCommerce chatbot to workflows across email, Slack, Teams, or anywhere else your customers or team engage.

For example:

• When someone emails support@yourstore.com, you can route the message to your chatbot to generate a helpful reply—then send that reply back via email automatically.

• If a customer asks a question in your store's live chat or Slack community, your chatbot can jump in with the right answer pulled straight from your connected knowledge sources.

• When a shopper triggers a high-intent behavior (like asking about bulk orders), your chatbot can notify your sales or support team instantly via Slack or CRM.

To get started, head to the Integrations tab in the chatbot builder. You can choose a pre-built template, or click Build from Scratch to connect your chatbot to any of Zapier's 8,000+ supported apps.

From there, your chatbot becomes more than a conversational assistant—it becomes part of your business operations. It can help manage inquiries, streamline responses, and sync with the tools your team already relies on.

Prefer to work directly in the Zap editor? You can do that too. Here are a few pre-made workflows to get you started:

Customize, test, and share your chatbot

Once your eCommerce chatbot has the right knowledge sources and logic in place, it's time to polish things up and get it ready for launch.

• Choose your AI model. By default, Zapier chatbots run on OpenAI's latest model, but you can bring your own API key to use other OpenAI or Anthropic models if you prefer. You'll also see a creativity slider—keep it low for fact-based responses (like return policies or shipping timelines), or bump it up if you want your bot to take a more conversational, sales-assistant tone.

• Tweak your settings. In the Settings tab, you can rename your chatbot, change the message box placeholder text, or add a fallback message in case the chatbot doesn't know how to respond. You can also include a disclosure note in the greeting and customize the chatbot's URL to match your brand.

• Brand your chatbot. In the Theme tab, you can upload a logo, update the chatbot avatar, adjust colors, and give your chatbot a friendly, on-brand name. Whether you want it to feel like a personal shopping assistant or a pro support rep, this is where you make it yours.

• Review conversations and insights. The Conversations tab shows chat logs so you can see what customers are asking and how the bot is responding—great for catching friction points or finding new automation opportunities. In the Analytics tab, you'll find engagement metrics like total conversations, common keywords, and customer sentiment.

• Test before you share. Use the built-in chat panel to simulate customer interactions, or click the Public Link to try the chatbot on your own. Make sure your Zaps are working too—for example, confirming that a Slack message fires when someone asks about wholesale pricing or that a CRM task is created when a customer gives their email.

Once everything looks good, you can copy the public URL to share with your team or embed the chatbot directly into your storefront. You can even use Zapier Interfaces to build a branded landing page that houses multiple chatbots—for support, sales, or post-purchase follow-up. (Here's a customer support portal template you can adapt for your store.)

Bring your eCommerce operations together with AI orchestration

A chatbot can handle repetitive customer questions and guide shoppers through the buying journey—but it's just one piece of a larger puzzle: helping your team scale while delivering a seamless experience to every customer.

Think of your chatbot as the helpful virtual store associate who always knows where the right product or policy is—but not the one managing your entire customer lifecycle. For that, you need orchestration.

Zapier is an AI orchestration platform that lets you connect not just your chatbot, but all the tools and automations your eCommerce business relies on. From product discovery to post-purchase support to personalized follow-up, Zapier helps you build end-to-end workflows that keep your store running smoothly—no matter how many customers walk through your virtual doors.

Good AI prompts are the backbone of good outputs. This is true for ChatGPT and even more so for AI image generation tools. But while ChatGPT provides solid responses even with super basic prompts, AI art generators tend to require more attention to detail—and more attempts—before you get what you're looking for.

Here's everything you need to know about how to write an effective AI art prompt. Plus, some AI art prompt examples to help get you started. 

Note: Since the model behind every AI art generator works with AI art prompts differently (and each attempt will be different), you'll notice variations in your results. 

Table of contents: 

• How to write an AI art prompt 

• Advanced tools and strategies for AI art prompts

• AI art prompt examples

• Automate your art generation

How to write an AI art prompt 

I've seen a lot of unique AI image prompts, but all of them share a set of common characteristics. Here's the general structure of an effective AI art prompt (keep scrolling for more details, along with starting words and expressions to help get you started): 

1. Describe the subject or content of your image. 

2. Describe the art form and style. 

3. Add any other relevant details, such as lighting, colors, and framing. 

How long should an AI art prompt be?

There aren't hard limits on how long or short a prompt should be. For example, Midjourney works well with 60-word prompts, while Stable Diffusion does best if you stay below 380 characters. 

No matter which AI image generator you use, one thing they all have in common is that they can get confused if you give them too much to work with. As you add more elements to your prompts, I recommend separating them with commas. This will help the AI model interpret your prompt. Plus, it'll make it easier for you to remember what you've asked for.

What style of language should you use in an AI art prompt?

The style of language you should use depends on the results you want. For more predictable results, use vivid details and concrete language. For a random grab bag, use poetic or abstract wording. 

As you become more experienced, you can play with the structure, length, and style of your AI art prompt. But first, let's drill down into each of the main components.

1. Describe the subject or content of your image 

When writing your AI art prompt, start by describing the subject or content of your image—for example, a cat, a family on a beach, or fall foliage. 

In addition to the subject or content, here are some other details you might want to describe: 

• Actions that the subject is doing (e.g., looking up, playing, or running)

• How they're doing these actions (e.g., joyfully, fearfully, or boldly)

• The mood of the image (e.g., ominous morning rain, dangerous sunset mountains, nostalgic coffee table)

The more details you provide, the better your chances of getting a more interesting result. But it depends a lot on the model you're using, since each one interprets the input in a different way due to its training and configuration. 

Here's an example of an AI image generated using a vague prompt.

And here's one with a more detailed prompt. 

2. Describe the art form and style

If you're looking to achieve a specific visual effect, you'll also want to describe the art form and style. Here are a few common art forms and styles to explore, along with the AI art prompt I used to generate each image. 

Photography

Photography will be a recurrent prompt you'll use, especially if you're going for realistic pictures. There's a lot you can control here: you can state the framing, lighting conditions, and even the type of camera you're "using," down to the camera/lens brands and specifications.

Painting

You can explore all sorts of angles here:

• Techniques (e.g., oil painting or watercolor)

• Art movements (e.g., impressionism or Fauvism)

• Artist names (e.g., Cézanne or Kahlo)

For unique results, try mixing techniques, movements, and artists together. (And if you're publishing the images later, consider crediting the artists you used for inspiration.)

Illustration

Other illustration types to try: 

• Pencil drawing

• Charcoal sketch

• Cartoon

• Poster

Digital art

Film stills

And more

There are plenty of other art forms you can explore. Some examples:

• Sculpture

• Collage

• Street art

• Textile art

• Installation art

• Ceramic art

• Lithography

Mix, match, and be amazed. Here are 70+ AI art styles to experiment with.

3. Add any other relevant detail to your prompt

After detailing the subject and art form, there are plenty of extras you can add to your prompt to further influence the end result.

Framing

Framing refers to how the subject or content is positioned in the image, and you can use it to influence image composition. 

It can be challenging to control the framing depending on how you write the first part of your prompt. For example, if you're having trouble with close-ups, try stating the subject first and describing the background after. Here's an example.

First, I tried using this prompt: Person standing inside a forest fire, strong determined attitude, close-up shot, realistic. Midjourney didn't care much about "close-up shot":

Then, I moved a few pieces around in the prompt: "Person with strong determined attitude, forest fire background, close-up shot, realistic." Now that the prompt says the forest fire is in the background, it's getting closer to what I wanted:

The expressions used for film directing and camerawork apply here, so you can use "wide shot," "point-of-view," or "dutch angle," among others.

Want more control over image composition? Try AI outpainting to expand an image beyond its limits and then crop it in the exact way you want it.

Lighting

Especially in photography, lighting is critical and can change the look and feel of an image. Consider tweaking your lighting prompts using "soft light," "hard light," or even "dramatic lighting." You can also mention times of day, such as "morning," "sunset," or "golden hour."

Color scheme

While controlling lighting already introduces a level of color control, you can also play with color schemes to influence the color of objects, light, or the entire image look and feel.

Level of detail and realism

Prompts like "4k" or "8k" give the AI model the instruction to increase the level of detail in the image. (Keep in mind that it doesn't increase the actual resolution of the image output.)

You can also use the "Unreal Engine" prompt to get the familiar feel of images rendered using that game engine. And if your photos aren't looking believable enough, make sure to add "realistic" or "ultrarealistic" to your prompt.

Advanced tools and strategies for AI art prompts

Now that we've gone through the basics, here are a few tools and suggestions to help you reach Legendary Imaginator status:

• Reverse engineer real images to find new prompts. CLIP Interrogator is an AI model hosted at Hugging Face that takes an image and gives you a text prompt based on its content. You can then use that result to build more detailed prompts and enter them into text-to-image models.

• Image-to-image. Text-to-image is just one option. You can also provide an image as inspiration and further tune it with text or model controls. Try it with Runway.

• AI outpainting. You can upload an image to an AI outpainting model, and it will expand it beyond the limits of the frame, creating a larger image. This is useful to get the exact framing you want or to create a larger image from a smaller detail. It works with non-AI-generated images too. Try it with neural.love.

• Fine-tune generation settings. Some models, like Stable Diffusion, let you adjust advanced generation settings. For example, by increasing or decreasing the number of steps, you can change how processed the final image should be. More steps usually lead to more detail.

• Train your own AI image model. Tools like Leap AI let you train your own image model, so it can better match a unique look and feel you're attempting to create, reducing the variance in outputs that you get from "public" image generation models.

• Edit images with AI. You can select parts of images and change them using a text prompt. Try it out in Canva or in Photoshop.

• Use ChatGPT to generate better text prompts. Yes, you can use AI to prompt AI. When you ask an AI chatbot to write prompts for you, you may be able to unlock new aesthetics, compositions, or subject combinations that you didn't think were possible.

AI art prompt examples

To make things easier on you, here are all the AI art prompts I mentioned in this article:

• A cat on a sofa. The cat is laying on its back looking playful. 

• A child playing on a sunny happy beach, their laughter as they build a simple sandcastle, emulate Nikon D6 high shutter speed action shot, soft yellow lighting.

• Impressionist oil painting of a cute robot.

• Illustration of dinosaurs drawn by a child, the illustrations are cute and heartwarming.

• Isolated convenience store in the middle of the desert at sunset, car parked outside, lo-fi, nostalgic.

• Buildings on fire, old film still.

• Person with strong determined attitude, forest fire background, close-up shot, realistic.

• Lonely evil bananas on a table, hard light chiaroscuro, realistic.

• A futuristic hopeful busy city, purple and green color scheme.

• A distant galaxy filled with tiny colorful stars, a blue, Earth-like planet in the foreground, realistic, colorful, 8k, trending on artstation.

Where to find more AI art prompt examples

For even more AI art prompt examples, you can lean on the past experience of other creators like you. If you use Discord, you can join OpenAI's server and Midjourney's server to keep up with the discussion on image generation (and, in the latter, use AI generation with the /imagine command). You can engage with the community, ask questions, and collaborate with others.

There are also lots of places to browse a collection of images and corresponding prompts. Here are some of my favorites:

• neural.love's public library (scroll down and click on the images to see the prompts) 

• Websites like Lexica for Stable Diffusion prompts.

• Midjourney's Discord channels

You'll get great hints on how each model interprets prompts, and you'll draw inspiration as you read original descriptions and fresh detail combos.

Automate your art generation

Once you've nailed down your prompting strategy, you can use Zapier to make image generation part of a scalable, repeatable workflow. Instead of treating each prompt as a one-off, Zapier lets you connect tools like ChatGPT, Prodia, and Hugging Face with the rest of your tech stack to run end-to-end, multi-step processes.

For example, when a campaign brief is added to Asana, Zapier can automatically use ChatGPT image generation to generate images, route them to your team in Slack for review, and then tag and store them in your asset management system. Learn more about how to automate your AI art generation, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Writing the best AI image prompts

AI image generation is a lot of fun, and it's getting better—and more accessible—at each turn. Make sure you think about the ethics of using AI-generated images, and explore every possibility.

It can take a few tries to get right. But as long as you have an experimentation mindset and keep iterating, you'll be able to progressively reach better and better results with your AI art prompts.

Now, please excuse me while I go back to trying to put the Eiffel Tower on Mars.

Related reading:

• The best AI productivity tools

• Stable Diffusion vs. ChatGPT: Which image generator is better?

• The top AI image editors

• Midjourney vs. ChatGPT: Which image generator is better?

• ChatGPT image generation: How to use it and get the best results

• AI prompt templates to use with your AI chatbots

• What is nano banana? Google's AI image generation model

This article was originally published in May 2023. The most recent update, with contributions from Jessica Lau, was published in November 2024.

Hustle culture is a contender for my least favorite online trend of all time. Do you love reading? Let me introduce you to 50 BookTok influencers who can teach you to cram in 200% more books a year. Are you a naturally late riser? Didn't you know that by "optimizing your morning routine," you can be a millionaire in the next 10 years (never mind that 5 a.m. cold plunges are your personal idea of hell)?

Not every aspect of life needs to be optimized to within an inch of its life. But if you're going to direct all that hustle energy somewhere, let it be where it actually makes sense: your business. Digital optimization can help your organization run more smoothly by automating workflows, saving time, and reducing waste.

And by optimizing your work, you actually gain time—like, say, an afternoon to read that cozy fantasy novel at your own indulgent, inefficient pace. Here's everything you need to know about digital optimization, why it matters, and how to start using it across your organization.

Skip ahead

• What is digital optimization?

• Benefits of digital optimization

• Digital marketing optimization

• Sales funnel optimization

• Customer service optimization

• HR optimization

• Operations optimization

What is digital optimization?

Digital optimization (also referred to as digital efficiency) is the process of using technology to improve how your business already runs. Where digital transformation typically involves rethinking your entire business model or adopting a new tech-forward strategy (cue the big consulting decks and multi-year roadmaps), digital optimization is more practical and incremental.

Think of it as using digital tools to make a series of smart upgrades: streamlining your sales handoffs, syncing data between apps, or using AI to summarize support tickets. The end goal is to free up your team's time, reduce errors, and deliver better experiences for your customers.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, digital optimization is just about making the wheel spin more smoothly and with fewer people needing to push.

Benefits of digital optimization

The end goal of digital optimization isn't just saving a few clicks (though I love saving clicks). It's about creating faster and more efficient workflows that give your team more time to focus on high-impact work. That also means they spend less time wrangling spreadsheets, chasing down updates, or manually copying data from one tool to another.

Here are a few of the biggest benefits:

• Greater efficiency. Automation removes the friction from day-to-day processes, helping you get more done with fewer resources.

• Stronger collaboration. When your tools talk to each other, your teams can, too. Optimization ensures the right people have the right information—whether that means routing leads to the right rep or notifying customer support when a sales call ends.

• Improved data accuracy. Manual data entry is error-prone and time-consuming. With automation, your data stays consistent and up to date across platforms, which makes reporting (and decision-making) much easier.

• Faster time to value. Instead of waiting on long implementation timelines or overhauling entire systems, optimization lets you build incrementally, so you start seeing impact right away.

• Happier teams and customers. Less context switching, fewer manual tasks, and more clarity mean your internal teams stay focused—and your customers get a more responsive, personalized experience.

Ultimately, digital optimization helps your business work smarter instead of harder. It gives you the flexibility to scale processes without scaling burnout—and lays the groundwork for more ambitious transformation down the line.

Digital optimization examples

Digital optimization looks different for everyone, depending on your specific context. It's like how Sunday Me meal preps like an elite athlete, but Wednesday Me eats shredded cheese straight from the bag while hate-watching The Summer I Turned Pretty.

A marketer might be focused on automating lead capture and campaign reporting, while someone in HR is more concerned with streamlining onboarding and managing PTO requests. These real use cases, broken down by department, show how automation can support your team's day-to-day work.

Digital marketing optimization

Optimizing your digital marketing helps you stay nimble while scaling intelligently, especially when it comes to managing leads. Instead of manually exporting CSVs or checking every inbox, you can automatically send new form submissions or ad clicks straight to your CRM and trigger a nurture sequence right away. Your leads get an immediate response, and you get to keep your sanity.

Beyond capturing leads, you can also automate what happens afterwards. Do things like tracking conversion events and sending abandoned cart nudges through email or SMS. AI tools can even score leads or group customers by behavior—then trigger personalized drip campaigns based on location, interest, or intent.

Sales funnel optimization

Contrary to popular belief, sales funnels weren't invented just to look impressive on a slide deck. Optimizing your sales funnel with automation helps your team respond faster and close more deals without letting hot leads slip through your fingers.

AI can help you draft personalized email responses from right inside your CRM, so you're not rewriting "Hey there, just circling back" a hundred times a week. And when sales calls happen, tools like Fathom can transcribe and summarize the conversation—then Zapier swoops in to automatically log those notes in your CRM. Want to really impress? Automate personalized video or image content for outreach. A quick, customized video pitch or graphic grabs attention without sacrificing your team's time.

Customer service optimization

Support teams are the unsung heroes of any business—and when things get hectic, automation helps make sure no customer is left hanging. These Zaps let you create support tickets from form responses, pass chatbot conversations off to a human when needed, or use AI to summarize tickets and suggest solutions.

Support doesn't just live in your ticketing platform, though. Your team is probably juggling tools like Slack, email, or project trackers. These Zaps make it easy to surface new ticket alerts wherever your team lives, so nothing gets overlooked, even on a busy Monday.

HR optimization

HR teams wear a lot of hats: recruiter, onboarding guide, schedule wrangler, and the occasional office party planner. Luckily, automation can help streamline the admin so you can focus on what really matters—finding great people and helping them thrive.

For starters, you can automate sharing new job openings across platforms like LinkedIn the moment they're published on your company's job board. And once the applications start rolling in, get real-time notifications in your team chat app, parse and summarize resumes with AI, and add new hires to your HR management system and onboarding flows.

And because culture matters, automation can help you keep tabs on the human side of HR, too. You can auto-post who's out of office in your team chat, so no one wonders why Karen hasn't answered that email. And don't sleep on automated birthday shoutouts—small gestures like that make a big difference, especially when you're scaling fast. HR optimization isn't just about cutting down on paperwork; it creates a smoother, more human experience for everyone involved.

Operations optimization

Operations is the part of the business that no one notices unless it stops working. It's the behind-the-scenes engine that keeps everything moving, from coordinating projects and systems to helping teams get what they need when they need it.

Digital optimization lets you sync internal data across teams, route tasks to the right people, and eliminate redundant work that slows everything down. Instead of living in dashboards or spreadsheets, information flows where it needs to, automatically.

You can even use automation to keep recurring work on schedule, move requests through approval chains, or post deadline nudges in team chat without micromanaging every step. And adding an AI layer can help by surfacing insights and making it easier for teams to collaborate without constant check-ins. The result is a well-oiled machine that scales without burning people out.

Make optimization work for you

Digital optimization isn't about squeezing every last drop of productivity out of your team or turning your workday into a series of automated sprints. (If you want to be subjected to that kind of torture, join a fitness bootcamp class or scroll through a few FIRE influencers' Instagram reels.) It's about making your systems work for you—removing friction and giving your people more time to focus on the work that actually matters.

You don't need to overhaul everything at once. Start small: automate that one annoying reporting task, fix the lead handoff that always falls through the cracks, or set up a reminder that pings the right person before the deadline passes. Those small wins build momentum, and soon you've got a fully optimized system that feels like it runs itself.

If you're just trying to work a little smarter and save enough time to sleep in past 7 a.m. (like nature intended), digital optimization is the place to start. But if you're ready to go bigger by reimagining the way your business operates from the ground up, check out our guide to digital transformation.

You can use Google Sheets to do practically anything. There's the serious stuff, like organizing to-do lists, managing leads, and making decisions. And then there's the fun stuff, like playing Wordle, simulating a baseball game, and making custom browser homepages. 

But before you can make a spreadsheet to track the number of minutes your dog has gone by without being told he's a good boy—or the stuff that helps you get actual work done—you have to understand the basics. 

In this Google Sheets tutorial for beginners, I'll walk you through everything you need to know about how to use Google Sheets.

Table of contents:

• What is Google Sheets?

• Google Sheets basic terms 

• How to create a spreadsheet in Google Sheets

• How to add data in Google Sheets

• How to use the Google Sheets toolbar

• How to format data in Google Sheets 

• How to make Google Sheets cells expand to fit text

• How to wrap text in Google Sheets

• How to freeze columns and rows in Google Sheets

• How to hide columns and rows in Google Sheets

• How to add a new sheet in Google Sheets

• How to use Google Sheets formulas 

• How to create a pivot table or chart in Google Sheets

• How to share and collaborate in Google Sheets

• Automate Google Sheets with Zapier

What is Google Sheets?

Google Sheets is a spreadsheet app used to organize, format, and calculate data. It's included as part of Google Workspace—a suite of connected productivity tools, including Google Docs, Google Forms, and Google Slides. 

You can access Google Sheets via the web, its mobile app (available for Android and iOS), and desktop app (available only on Google's ChromeOS). 

Is Google Sheets the same as Excel?

Google Sheets and Excel are both spreadsheet apps, so there are a lot of overlapping features. But there are a few key differences.

• Collaboration. Google Sheets was designed with collaboration in mind—that's why it's so easy to share worksheets with various permission settings. Excel has similar collaboration features—for example, you can add and edit comments—but the experience isn't as smooth as what you get with Google Sheets. 

• Cell limits. Google Sheets has a cell limit of 10 million, but that pales in comparison to Excel's 17 billion cells per spreadsheet. That's what makes Excel the better tool for dealing with big data. 

• Formulas. Excel has more powerful formulas and data analysis features, including built-in statistical analysis tools and extensive data visualization options. Google Sheets, on the other hand, offers a "lite" version of most of these features—but they're nowhere near as in-depth.

For a detailed breakdown of how these two apps stack up, check out our app showdown: Google Sheets vs. Excel. 

Google Sheets basic terms 

To kick things off, let's cover some spreadsheet terminology you'll need to know when using Google Sheets:

• Cell: A single data point or element in a spreadsheet.

• Column: A vertical set of cells.

• Row: A horizontal set of cells.

• Range: A selection of cells extending across a row, column, or both.

• Function: A built-in operation from the spreadsheet app you'll use to calculate cell, row, column, or range values and manipulate data.

• Formula: The combination of functions, cells, rows, columns, and ranges used to obtain a specific result.

• Worksheet (Sheet): The named sets of rows and columns that make up your spreadsheet. One spreadsheet can have multiple sheets.

• Spreadsheet: The entire document containing your worksheets. 

How to create a spreadsheet in Google Sheets

There are four ways to create a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets. 

From the Google Sheets dashboard 

1. Go to docs.google.com/spreadsheets.

2. Click Blank spreadsheet. 

From an existing Google Sheets spreadsheet

1. With Google Sheets open, click File.

2. Click New.

3. Click Spreadsheet to create a blank spreadsheet or From template gallery to use a template. 

   

From Google Drive 

1. Go to drive.google.com.

2. In the side menu, click New, and then select Google Sheets. 

3. Select Blank spreadsheet or From a template. 

From your browser's address bar 

1. With your browser open, enter sheets.new into the address bar. 

2. Press Enter. 

3. A new tab with a blank Google Sheet will appear in your browser window.

How to add data in Google Sheets

When you create a new spreadsheet, you can immediately begin typing, and your data will automatically appear in the top-left cell. If you want to enter data somewhere else, click another cell and type away. A blue border will appear around the cell you're typing in to make it easier to identify which cell you're working with.  

To make it easier to filter or manipulate data later on, each cell should contain only one value—for example, 100 or Mango.

When you finish entering data into a cell, you can do one of four things:

1. Press Enter or return to save the data and move to the beginning of the next row.

2. Press Tab to save the data and move one cell to the right in the same row.

3. Use your arrow keys (up, down, left, and right) to move one cell in that direction.

4. Click any cell to jump directly to it.

If you don't want to type in everything manually, you can also import data into Google Sheets en masse using a few different methods:

1. Copy and paste a list of text or numbers into your spreadsheet.

2. Copy and paste an HTML table from a website.

3. Import an existing spreadsheet. If you're importing data from another Google Sheet, you can also use the IMPORTRANGE function to automatically pull in that data and keep things consistent. 

4. Use the fill handle to automatically populate neighboring cells with data. 

How to import data to Google Sheets

If you want to pull in data from an existing spreadsheet, you'll first have to export that spreadsheet's data into an acceptable file format—for example, .csv, .xls, or .xlsx. 

1. With Google Sheets open, click File > Import. 

2. Choose the file you want to import. You can upload a file directly from Google Drive or your computer. 

3. Click Insert. 

4. In the Import file popup, you can modify the following: 

   • Import location. This gives you a handful of ways to import your data. For example, you can import your data into your current sheet, add it as a new sheet, or create a new spreadsheet altogether. 

   • Separator tab. Google Sheets will automatically detect and apply this, but you can also choose a specific type: Tab, Comma, or Custom. 

     

5. Click Import data. 

How to use the fill handle in Google Sheets 

The fill handle in Google Sheets offers a convenient way to populate data or copy formulas and data in adjacent cells. Hover your cursor over the bottom-right corner of any cell or cell range, and it'll automatically turn into the fill handle—it looks like a plus sign (+).

By dragging the fill handle across or down a range of cells, you can perform a number of tasks:

1. Copy a cell's data, including any formatting, to neighboring cells. 

2. Copy a cell's formula to neighboring cells. 

3. Create an ordered list of data. 

The value Google Sheets populates in the neighboring cells will vary depending on the type of data contained in the original cell or cell range that the fill handle originated from.  

For example, if you select only one cell, the value of the selected cell will appear in every cell that you drag the handle over. 

If you select a series of neighboring cells, Google Sheets will repeat the pattern across or down the cells that you drag the handle over. In the example below, I've selected three neighboring cells, each containing a unique value: Mango, Coconut, and Pineapple. When I drag the fill handle, the pattern repeats across the row so that it's Mango, Coconut, Pineapple, Mango, Coconut, Pineapple, and so on. 

If you want to use the fill handle to create an ordered list, highlight at least two cells containing the sequence you want Google Sheets to continue, and then drag the fill handle. 

When it comes to ordered lists, there's one caveat worth mentioning.  

Unlike copying text values to neighboring cells, Google Sheets will only continue sequences for number values—not repeat them. For example, if I wanted to repeat the pattern Employee 1, Employee 2, Employee 3 across the row, Google Sheets wouldn't be able to. It would just keep counting up. I would have to manually copy and paste the values across instead. 

To make things confusing, if I select a cell range containing an arbitrary set of numbers—for example, Employee 1, Employee 17, and Employee 20—Google Sheets would repeat this pattern since there's no logical sequence to continue. 

How to automatically import data using Zapier

Don't want to spend precious time manually importing data into Google Sheets? Automate the process instead. With Zapier's Google Sheets integration, you can automatically pull data from other apps into your spreadsheet and orchestrate multi-step, AI-powered workflows. For example, you can import customer feedback from an online form, use AI to categorize those responses into specific segments or topics, and flag feedback that meets certain criteria for personalized follow-up.

Learn more about how to automatically add data to Google Sheets, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

How to use the Google Sheets toolbar

The Google Sheets toolbar is where you'll find all your basic tools and formatting options. Depending on the width of your screen, some of the tools may be hidden. To reveal them, click the More icon, which looks like three dots stacked vertically (⋮). 

Hover over any icon to discover its function. Or click on it to expand that tool's options, if applicable. Tools like Borders, Comments, and Align work similarly to what you'd expect from Google Docs. 

If you can't find a tool or want to check if a tool exists, the quickest way to find out is by using the search tool. Click the Search the menus icon, which looks like a magnifying glass. 

Unlike how you can hide the toolbar in Excel, Google Sheets gives you the opposite ability: you can hide everything above the toolbar, including the spreadsheet name and tabs, allowing you to focus on the spreadsheet itself. To do this, click the up caret (⋀) in the toolbar or use your keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+F (on Mac and Windows). Click the caret or enter the keyboard shortcut again to make everything reappear. 

Now back to using the Google Sheets toolbar. 

The best way to show you how to use some of the most common Google Sheets formatting tools is to work through an example. Let's edit this simple project tracker. 

How to format data in Google Sheets 

To start, let's make the headers in the first row stand out. 

• Click the cells you want to format. To apply the same formatting to neighboring cells, select the first cell, and drag your cursor across or down the cell range. To apply the same formatting to cells that aren't connected, select one cell, press and hold command on a Mac or Ctrl on Windows, and then select the other cells. Your cell selection will remain selected unless you click on a different cell, which is convenient if you want to edit multiple formatting options. 

• From the toolbar, click the plus sign (+) next to the font size to increase it to 12. Or you can enter 12 in the Font size field.

• Click the Bold icon, which looks like the letter B.  

• Click the Fill color icon, which looks like a paint can, and select a theme color. I'm using a light shade of green. 

• Click the Align icon, which looks like a stack of horizontal lines. By default, it's set to Horizontal Align. Click Center.

The headings are more obvious now. But some of the heading names are cut off. Let's fix that. 

How to make Google Sheets cells expand to fit text 

There's a default setting in Google Sheets called Overflow that allows cells with long strings of text or numbers to bleed into the neighboring cell. But once you enter data into that neighboring cell, that long string of text will get cut off. 

The easiest way to expand the cell to fit your text is by double-clicking the border on the right side of the column you want to expand. Google Sheets will then expand it to fit the longest value in that column. 

You can also expand the width of multiple columns at once. 

1. Highlight the columns you want to resize. 

2. Right-click your selection. 

3. Click Resize columns [names of columns selected]. 

   

4. In the Resize columns popup, click Fit to data. 

5. Click OK. 

   

That's it. No more smooshed data. 

How to wrap text in Google Sheets

Let's say you want to leave your columns a set width. There's another way to make sure each cell's data is still visible within a too-small column: wrap the text.  

1. Click the cell or cells you want to apply the text wrap to. 

2. Click the Text wrapping icon in the toolbar, and then select the Wrap icon. 

3. Google Sheets will automatically change the row height to fit the data. 

How to freeze columns and rows in Google Sheets 

If I scroll down through the project tracker, the column headers will quickly disappear from view. To lock the headers in place, let's freeze the first row. Here's the easiest way to do this. 

1. In the top-left corner of your spreadsheet, next to column A and above row 1, find the thick gray bar running horizontally. 

2. Click and drag the bar under the last row you want to freeze. In this case, that's row 1. 

To unfreeze the row, drag the bar back to its original position.

You can also use the same method to freeze columns in Google Sheets—just drag the vertical bar instead. 

How to hide columns and rows in Google Sheets

When you're working with endless rows of data, it's easy to lose track of what's what. One way to help you focus is by temporarily hiding any rows of irrelevant data.  

1. Highlight the rows or columns you want to hide. 

2. Right-click your selection. 

3. Click Hide rows [numbers of rows selected]. 

You'll know rows are hidden if there are numbers missing from your row headers. Or, in the case of columns, missing column letters.

To make the rows visible again, click the arrows that appear in lieu of the hidden rows. 

How to add a sheet in Google Sheets

You can add another sheet to your existing spreadsheet using one of two methods: add a new blank sheet or duplicate and existing one. Here's how to do both.

How to add a new blank sheet

If you want to add a blank sheet to your existing spreadsheet, click the Add sheet icon, which looks like a plus sign (+), at the bottom of your existing spreadsheet. 

How to duplicate a Google Sheet

You can also make a copy of a sheet in Google Sheets. 

1. Click the down caret (⋁) next to the tab with the name of the sheet you want to duplicate. 

2. Click Duplicate. 

   

3. Double-click the sheet's tab to rename it. 

How to use Google Sheets formulas

Like most spreadsheet apps, Google Sheets offers a bunch of built-in formulas to help you process a number of statistical and data manipulation tasks. You can also combine formulas to create more powerful calculations and string tasks together. If you're already accustomed to crunching numbers in Excel, most of the formulas work in Google Sheets the exact same way. 

As a refresher, a function is a predesigned formula that's built into the app, whereas a Google Sheets formula is any equation you come up with. Before you spend time creating new formulas, it's helpful to understand which functions are already available. 

Here's a quick overview of the most common basic Google Sheets functions. 

• SUM: adds all the values in a cell range. For example, =SUM(D2:D10) in our spreadsheet would add up all the hours spent across cells D2 to D10. 

• AVERAGE: returns the average of a range of cells. For example, =AVERAGE(D2:D10) would return 16. 

• COUNT: counts the number of cells in a given range that contain numbers. For example, =COUNT(D2:D10) would return 9 because every cell in that range contains a number. If I deleted the value in cell D5, the count would automatically change to 8.

• MAX: returns the highest value in a cell range. For example =MAX(D2:D10) would return 33. 

• MIN: returns the lowest value in a cell range. For example, =MAX(D2:D10) would return 2.

You can also browse through Google Sheets's extensive library of functions for a complete breakdown.  

How to use Google Sheets functions 

There are two main ways to use a Google Sheets function.

Enter the function name in the cell 

One way to insert a function in a cell is to enter the equal sign (=) immediately followed by the function name. Google Sheets will autocomplete the function name and suggest what data you should include in the function. For example, when I enter =SUM in cell E12, Google Sheets finishes the formula by suggesting =SUM(E2:10). Google Sheets will also suggest a list of other related functions. To accept the suggested formula, press Tab. 

Another option: After you enter =, click Generate formula with Gemini in the dropdown. From there, you can ask Gemini to create a formula for you using plain English—for example, "Tell me which project generates the most amount billed, on average."

Choose from the Function menu 

1. Click the cell you want to enter the function into. 

2. Click Insert, and then select Function. 

3. Click the function you want to use. 

   

4. Google Sheets will populate the function in your cell, along with the parentheses where you'll need to enter your argument—the information you want the formula to calculate. For example, in the formula =SUM(E2:E10), the argument E2:E10 tells Google Sheets to add the values of cells E2 to E10. 

Now let's get back to how to use Google Sheets formulas. 

To create a formula to calculate simple arithmetics, like adding, subtracting, or multiplying, you need to use specific symbols. 

• To add: use the + sign.

• To subtract: use the - sign.

• To multiply: use the * sign.

• To divide: use the / sign.

• To use exponents: use the ^ sign.

Remember: Every formula must begin with an equal sign (=) immediately followed by the formula. By default, Google Sheets will use PEMDAS to determine the order of operations (what to calculate and in what order): Parentheses first, followed by Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, and then, finally, Subtraction. 

For example, if I enter =10-5*2, Google Sheets will return 0. But if I enter =(10-5)*2, it'll return 10.

If you have a series of calculations that need to happen in a specific order, use PEMDAS. 

How to create a pivot table or chart in Google Sheets 

Now that you know how to create a spreadsheet, import data, and use formulas, let's go over more advanced ways to manipulate and visualize your data. 

How to create a pivot table in Google Sheets

A pivot table is a helpful way to analyze large data sets. With a pivot table, you can use the same data, manipulate it however you want, and get new insights each time—you don't have to create a new spreadsheet for each analysis. 

We have an in-depth tutorial on how to create and use pivot tables in Google Sheets, but here's a quick overview. 

1. Select all of the cells with the source data that you want to use, including column headers. 

2. Click Insert, and select Pivot table. 

3. Choose if you want to insert your table into a new sheet or an existing one. 

4. In the pivot table editor, add the rows and columns you want to analyze, along with the values you want to display within each row and column.  

The data in your pivot table will automatically change if the source data changes. If you don't see the changes reflected in your pivot table, refresh your page. It may take a minute to update, depending on the volume of data changes.

How to create a chart in Google Sheets 

Let's say I want to quickly visualize how much time each client spent on their project. One way to do this would be to create a chart. 

1. Select all of the cells with the source data you want to use, including column headers.

2. Click Insert, and then select Chart. 

3. By default, Google Sheets will turn your data into a bar graph, and, for some odd reason, it'll place that graph directly on top of your source data. To modify the chart or to use a different type altogether, use the Chart editor. Alternatively, you can tell Gemini (the prompt bar's at the top of the side panel) what kind of chart you want to create, and it'll take care of the rest.

4. Click any of the blue dots surrounding the border of your chart to resize it. You can also drag and drop the chart to reposition it. 

If you want to make more edits later on, right-click the chart and select the field you want to edit. Clicking any field will bring the full Chart editor back into view. 

How to share and collaborate in Google Sheets 

There are a few ways to share your spreadsheet, but here's the easiest one: 

1. Click Share above your spreadsheet. 

2. In the Share popup, you can: 

   • Enter the names or email addresses of people you want to share the spreadsheet with. 

   • Click Copy link to share a link to your spreadsheet. 

3. Any individual you give spreadsheet access to will automatically have full Editor permissions—they can make changes, leave comments, and give others access to the file. To change this, click Editor next to their name and choose their permission level: Viewer or Commenter. You can also set an access expiration date from here.

4. Click Save. 

In addition to sharing with specific people, you can also give general access to anyone in your organization or anyone with the link. 

Word of advice: If your spreadsheet contains cell ranges that shouldn't be tampered with, lock cells in Google Sheets before sharing it. 

Automate Google Sheets with Zapier

Google Sheets is often the backbone of how teams store and organize data, but the real value comes when you use that data to power the rest of your business's workflows. Wen you use Zapier's Google Sheets integration, you can orchestrate multi-step, AI-powered workflows that turn a static spreadsheet into part of a larger system.

For example, every new online order on your eCommerce site can be automatically logged in Google Sheets, then passed through ChatGPT to generate a personalized thank-you note, enriched with CRM data to include loyalty status, and then routed through your email platform for delivery.

Discover more ways to automate Google Sheets, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Related reading: 

• How to make a table in Google Sheets

• The best Google Sheets add-ons to boost your productivity

• How to use conditional formatting in Google Sheets

• What does formula parse error mean in Google Sheets? (And how to fix it)

• How to convert Excel to Google Sheets

This article was originally published in July 2016 with contributions from Michael Grubbs and Shea Stevens. The most recent update was in September 2025.

Let's say you have a list of email addresses that you collected through a form on your website. You want to know how many email addresses you received, but you're worried that someone may have filled out the form twice, which would inflate your numbers. 

When you're working with large amounts of data in a spreadsheet, you're bound to have duplicate records. Whether it was human error or robots that put them there, those duplicates can mess with your workflows, documentation, and data analysis.

Here, I'll show you how to find duplicates in Google Sheets, so you can decide whether or not to delete them yourself. I'll also walk through how to automatically remove duplicates and create a list of unique values.

Table of contents:

• How to find duplicates in Google Sheets

• How to remove duplicates in Google Sheets

• How to find unique values in Google Sheets

• Automate Google Sheets with Zapier

How to find duplicates in Google Sheets 

The easiest way to find data doppelgängers is to highlight all duplicate content using conditional formatting and a custom formula. What's the formula? It doesn't matter because now that Gemini is integrated into Google Sheets, you can simply ask Gemini to find and highlight duplicates for you. (But if you want to feel like you've really earned your Spreadsheet Savant badge on LinkedIn, jump ahead for the manual steps.)

1. Click any cell in your spreadsheet.

2. Enter the equal sign (=), and select Generate formula with Gemini.

   

3. In the Gemini chat, tell the AI what you want it to do. For example: "Create a formula that finds and highlights every duplicate value in light orange."

4. Press Enter.

5. Gemini will respond with a suggested plan and formula.

   

6. Click Apply.

   

That's it.

How to manually highlight duplicates in a single column in Google Sheets

If you get a kick out of manually setting conditional formatting rules, here's how to set up a rule to help you spot repeat values in a single column.

1. Highlight the data range you want to check for duplicate information. Then select Format > Conditional Formatting.

   

2. From the Conditional format rules window that appears, click the dropdown menu under Format rules, and select Custom formula is.

3. Enter a custom duplicate checking formula in the Value or formula bar. In this example, we're looking for duplicates in cells B2:B15, so the custom formula is =COUNTIF($B$2:$B$15,B2)>1. If your duplicates are in a different data range (for example, A2:A15), your custom formula would be =COUNTIF($A$2:$A$15,A2)>1.

   

4. Customize how your duplicates will appear on the spreadsheet under Formatting style. By default, Google Sheets will highlight duplicate data in green. Then click Done. (Tip: If you change the fill color, choose a high-contrast color scheme, such as light yellow 3, to improve readability.)

   

5. You can now review the duplicate data (highlighted) and decide whether you need to delete any redundant information.

   

How to highlight duplicates in multiple rows or columns in Google Sheets 

If you have duplicate data in multiple rows or columns, repeat steps one to three from above, but change the custom duplicate checking formula to =COUNTIF($A:$Z,Indirect(Address(Row(),Column(),)))>1. 

Tip: If you only want to scan for duplicates in specific rows or columns, simply update the data range under Apply range to match the cell range you want to check for repeats. 

Customize how your duplicates will appear on the spreadsheet under Formatting style. Then click Done. 

How to remove duplicates in Google Sheets 

If you want to dive right into nixing redundant data without manually reviewing them first, Google has made this really easy to do. It's not as simple as telling a chatbot to make duplicates disappear, but the feature is accompanied by a sparkly wand, so it's just as fun. Here's how to remove duplicate data in Google Sheets.

1. Click any cell that contains data. Then, select the Data tab > Data cleanup > Remove duplicates.

   

2. From the Remove duplicates window that appears, select which columns you'd like to include in your search for duplicate data. Click Remove duplicates. 

   

   Note: If your spreadsheet includes a header row, be sure to select Data has header row, so that Google Sheets ignores this row when removing duplicates. 

3. Google Sheets will let you know how many duplicate values were removed. 

Bonus: How to find unique values in Google Sheets

If you want to keep your original data and get a list of unique values (data that's not duplicated) from a data range, the simplest way is to ask Gemini to do this. Enter this prompt: "Give me a list of only unique values."

Behind the scenes, Gemini will run a UNIQUE function, and then return a list of unique values, which you can then insert or copy and paste into your sheet. Note: If you insert Gemini's output, it'll overwrite your existing data.

Automate Google Sheets with Zapier

If you're going through the effort of manually finding and cleaning up duplicates in Google Sheets, chances are you're also juggling other repetitive spreadsheet tasks. Use Zapier's Google Sheets integration to automate those workflows instead. Zapier lets you connect thousands of apps together so you can orchestrate multi-step, AI-powered workflows that scale across teams and systems.

For example, you can set up a workflow that takes new form entries, uses AI to check for duplicates before they ever land in your sheet, enriches the valid ones with extra context, and then routes high-value leads to your CRM. Instead of constantly tidying up, you’re building a system that keeps data clean and useful from the start.

Discover more ways to automate Google Sheets, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Related reading:

• How to remove duplicates in Excel

• How to add a dropdown list in Google Sheets

• How to freeze columns and rows in Google Sheets

• How to merge cells in Google Sheets

• How to sort in Google Sheets

• How to use IMPORTRANGE in Google Sheets

• Google Sheets shortcuts to help you enter, organize, and interpret your data

This article was originally published in May 2018 by Deb Tennen. The most recent update was in September 2025.

The Zappy Awards honor builders who don't just dream about the future but create it. These trailblazers don't wait for permission or instructions; they fearlessly forge systems that redefine what's possible with AI and automation. 

The results? Nothing short of extraordinary. Explore this year's category winners and get inspired by what you can accomplish when creativity, courage, and automation collide.

AI Solution Innovator of the Year

Charlie Hoehn, Co-founder and Head of Product at Author.Inc

The 2025 AI Solution Innovator of the Year is Charlie Hoehn, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Author.Inc!

Charlie wired Zapier and AI across book production operations at Author.inc. His systems move transcripts, trigger editorial workflows, update dashboards, and remove bottlenecks. By streamlining operations, Charlie has achieved margins near 70%—in an industry where 40% is considered excellent.

Automation Hero of the Year

John Rippy, Chief Technology Officer at Drive Social Media

The 2025 Automation Hero of the Year is John Rippy, Chief Technology Officer at Drive Social Media!

John built Project Phoenix, a 95-step AI pipeline that scripts, outlines, spins up ideation assets, and preps sales pitches—all while tracking impact end-to-end. Project Phoenix enables the Drive Social Media team to cut development time by up to 50% and scale content with consistency.

Customer Support Automator of the Year

Nick Paliughi, Director of Support at Freshy

Our Customer Support Automator of the Year is Nick Paliughi, Director of Support at Freshy!

To streamline support tickets, Nick built an AI-powered triage that classifies and routes WordPress tickets, drafts responses, and escalates with context. Content gets auto-drafted and reviewed for quality assurance while a knowledge layer tracks time and cost per interaction, lifting throughput without extra headcount.

HR Automator of the Year

Kathy Lam, Talent Operations Specialist at StackAdapt

Our HR Automator of the Year is Kathy Lam, Talent Operations Specialist at StackAdapt!

When faced with an endless stream of applicants, Kathy turned to Zapier to build sophisticated HR solutions that kept candidate reviews aligned. A GPT-powered hiring logic app scans interview artifacts for structure, clarity, and fit—then sends Slack alerts and next-step prompts. This workflow standardizes scoring and reduces variance while keeping recruiters in their flow.

IT Automator of the Year

Dan Dorato-Hankins, Chief Technology Officer at Vector Media

The 2025 IT Automator of the Year is Dan Dorato-Hankins, Chief Technology Officer at Vector Media!

Dan has built countless game-changing solutions that bring Zapier and AI to Vector Media. His implementation of an end-to-end onboarding and offboarding system eliminates over an hour of manual work per new hire—giving the IT team time back to focus on bigger challenges.  

Marketing Automator of the Year

Andrew Harding, Vice President, Marketing and Partnerships at Slate

Our Marketing Automator of the Year is Andrew Harding, Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships at Slate!

As Slate continued to move upmarket, qualifying prospects at scale became a challenge. As a solution, Andrew built a Zapier Agent lead generator that returned over 2,000 qualified enterprise prospects. It identifies, validates, and logs contacts automatically—fueling high-efficiency outbound with a response rate close to 50%.

Nonprofit Automator of the Year

Deborah Mader, Systems and Operations Manager at Lahaina Community Land Trust

The 2025 Nonprofit Automator of the Year is Deborah Mader, Systems and Operations Manager at Lahaina Community Land Trust!

To support those impacted by the Lahaina wildfire in 2023, Deborah built a system linking households, properties, and services so families could get help fast. This system efficiently transforms detailed household data collected via Google Forms into structured Salesforce records, helping the organization overcome data management challenges while ensuring relational integrity and reducing manual data entry.

Operations Automator of the Year

Jocelyne Mendez-Guzman, Customer Experience Operations Specialist at BioRender

Our Operations Automator of the Year is Jocelyne Mendez-Guzman, Customer Experience Operations Specialist at BioRender!

Jocelyne developed a 51-step automation to streamline the Accounts Receivable (AR) ticket management process within Zendesk. This solution reduced ticket resolution time by 69%, improved first reply time by 39%, and enabled the team to process 50% more tickets—resulting in faster cash flow and a more efficient AR team.

Sales Automator of the Year

Isaac Smith, AI Operations Manager at Klue

The 2025 Sales Automator of the Year is Isaac Smith, AI Operations Manager at Klue.

At the helm of Klue’s AI transformation efforts, Isaac developed a centralized framework using Zapier—which streamlined AI solutions across the go-to-market team, reducing workflow duplication and fostering collaboration. In just eight months, the system has been used over 8,000 times and saved the team more than 900 hours, demonstrating a quantifiable impact on efficiency and a cultural shift towards automation and innovation.

Z-Suite AI Transformation Leader of the Year

Adnan Khan, Co-Founder & Co-Chief Executive Officer at Viva

Our Z-Suite AI Transformation Leader of the Year is Adnan Khan, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Viva - Executive Assistants.

By building a culture at Viva that embraces AI, Adnan has increased usage by implementing a tactical approach through an AI task board. This initiative came to life through daily sessions encouraging team collaboration and the creation of Zaps—showcasing Adnan's commitment to enhancing productivity and efficiency.  

Thank you to the winners and to everyone who applied this year. Keep creating automation magic! We can't wait to see you next year.

If a good chunk of your time is spent parroting the same replies to common questions from customers or other teammates, an AI chatbot can make your work easier. But you're more likely to see real gains when you build a chatbot that actually works with your existing systems—not one that operates in isolation or makes you jump between a dozen different tools.

That's what makes Zapier Chatbots such a strong part of an AI orchestration system. You can train them on your company knowledge, customize how they respond, and securely integrate them into your existing workflows, no matter which apps your teams use.

In this post, I'll walk you through building your own chatbot on Zapier. I'm training mine to give me feedback on my writing, but you can adapt these instructions to create whatever kind of bot fits your needs.

Table of contents

• Set up your chatbot basics

• Give your chatbot instructions

• Add knowledge sources

• Add logic to your chatbot

• Adjust your chatbot's theme

• Integrate your chatbot in other apps

• Select your AI model

• Change your settings

• Test, share, and embed your chatbot

• Use a pre-built template

Set up your chatbot basics

Let's start off with creating a chatbot from scratch. Head over to your chatbot dashboard. On the top-right corner of your screen, click +Create. (Or, instead of navigating to your dashboard, you can just type chatbots.new into your browser bar and begin from there.)

You'll then be required to give your chatbot a name. In this case, I'm calling mine the Editor Bot, but obviously this will depend on your use case.

Once you've named your bot, click +Create. This will set up an empty chatbot for you to edit.

The left and middle panels are where you can set up your chatbot's instructions, knowledge sources, and more. The panel on the right is what your bot will look like once it's ready.

Give your chatbot instructions

The first step is to give your chatbot a directive. This is the most important part of your chatbot—it dictates what the chatbot does and how it'll respond to users.

Here's what my prompt looks like:

When you're happy with your prompt, click Save changes at the bottom of the screen. You can tweak your prompt any time by clicking Edit directive.

Because this is like the "prompt" you'd give your AI tool as a user, it's important to remember that the more detailed and clear your instructions are, the better the chatbot will respond. 

For best results, you should specify the following information, which we've included inside the directive as inspiration:

• The chatbot's role

• Its objective

• The rules and steps it should always follow

• The audience that will engage with the chatbot

• Any context it needs to properly answer

• Any additional resources it should pull answers from

• The style of how you want it to respond

• Any other rules the chatbot needs to follow

As you go, you can test the conversation in the right-hand panel to see how the chatbot engages.

Under Greeting, you can add text—this is what your chatbot will say when your users first interact with it. If you're not sure what to write, you can click Generate a greeting with AI and it will do it for you based on the directive you've given it.

Add a knowledge source

One of the best things about using Zapier to build a chatbot is that you can use your own supplemental knowledge sources to limit your chatbot's answers to pre-approved or specific content. 

You can upload PDFs, PPTs, and other static files (up to 2MB), use information stored in a Zapier table, or even add website URLs for the chatbot to scrape information from. 

Once uploaded, your chatbot can only generate answers from that specific source or database. (It's a bit like feeding the AI your own knowledge to tailor its responses.)

For example, if you're building a customer support bot, you can tailor its responses with any approved FAQs you've uploaded. Or you could build a bot that can answer employee questions about a company-specific event, like a webinar or a retreat, based on information from specific websites.

To add a knowledge source, click the Knowledge tab in the left panel of your screen.

Next, click + Add your first knowledge source to choose which type of knowledge source you want your chatbot to draw its responses from. In my case, I'll be adding both a webpage link (Zapier's blog) and a static file (a copy of the Zapier blog and style guide) so my bot understands the dynamics of writing for the blog—and can provide editorial feedback accordingly.

To add a public URL, click Webpage. Under Public URL, add the specific site you want the chatbot to scan.

Your chatbot can also scan all the subpages of the link you add. Once enabled, you'll be able to select or deselect the pages you want to connect your chatbot to.

Once you're done, click Continue.

To add a static file, click +Add source, select Upload File, then Browse files to upload a file from your computer.

Once you're done, click Add source.

Tip: To make sure your AI chatbot can easily process the information within your uploaded file, try to keep related information together in paragraphs, rather than using bullet points.

To add a table, click +Add source, then select Table. 

Here, you can either select an existing table you've created previously from the dropdown menu or create a new table from scratch.

Once you've selected your table, click Add source.

The process for adding sources from Google Docs or Notion is much the same—just connect your account, select the file you want, then click Add source.

If you're adding a table or any other data source that is updated or edited (like an online help doc) by your team, you can even schedule regular syncs. That way, if an online page gets updated, your chatbot can access the most up-to-date information. 

You can set the frequency of your knowledge sources on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis and set the date and time, too.

Here's an example of how our bot responds now that it has a data source to pull answers from:

Add logic to your chatbot

Adding logic to your chatbot refers to certain actions your chatbot can take. You might, for example, want to collect contact information from your chatbot users (like phones and email addresses). Or you might want to set up automatic workflows (Zaps) that notify you in Slack whenever your chatbot finishes a conversation. 

To add logic to your chatbot, click the Logic tab in the left-hand panel of your screen.

Collect lead information

If you're building a chatbot to help support your customers or manage your leads, adding the ability to collect contact information is a no-brainer. Not only does it give your chatbot a personalized touch, but it's an easy way to follow up with leads who engage with your chatbot. 

To collect leads, select Collect leads from your list of options. 

There are several ways to collect this information: at the beginning of every conversation, after a few messages, when certain keywords are used, or if your chatbot doesn't have enough information to provide an answer.

Next, select the fields to capture within the conversation. Options include Name, Email, Phone, and Text:

Finally, choose how you want your chatbot to ask for these details—one at a time or all at once.

Here's what asking one question at a time looks like:

And here's what users see when they receive all the questions at once:

Once you click Create logic, Zapier will automatically create a new table for you (and link it to your chatbot) so you can access it later. 

Zapier Tables (our no-code database) is powered by automation, so you can take further action on those leads (like sending follow-up emails) directly from there.

To view your table, just click the link and it will open for you. You'll see the contact fields automatically added:

Create a Zap button

Because our chatbots connect to Zapier's ecosystem of nearly 8,000 apps, you can set up automatic workflows that trigger whenever your chatbot generates a response. 

For example, you could create a Zap that sends your chatbot's responses to a specific Slack channel. That way, your fellow team members can review a piece of copy your editor bot has suggested. Or, if you've created a bot to help you write social media posts, you could set up a Zap to send those posts straight to LinkedIn. 

To set up a Zap, click Zap button. 

The event Every time a user gets a response will be pre-selected for you. (This is what determines when the action runs or becomes available to the user.)

In the Button text field, add the button text the user will see once the chatbot has generated a response.

In the Button icon field, choose from hundreds of icons to appear next to your button text.

Because my Zap will send the response to a Slack channel, I'll write: Send to Slack for review. You can also do the same for your notification text, so you or the chatbot user knows the message gets sent.

When you're done, click Create logic and Zap.

You'll be taken to the Zap editor, where you can finish setting up your Zap. Your trigger step will be preselected for you, so all you have to do is add an action step that involves sending the response to Slack as a channel message. You can click on the + icon to add an action step, like so: 

Once you've published your Zap, you can navigate back to your chatbots page and to your Logic tab, where you can see your Zap set up.

Now, whenever your chatbot issues a response, a button will appear.

Run a Zap

There's another way to create a Zap inside your chatbot. By selecting Run Zap, you can trigger automatic workflows after a conversation ends with your chatbot.

That's extremely handy if you want to send those conversations to another app (like to a Google sheet for analysis) or add the person's contact details elsewhere (like to your CRM for a personalized follow-up).

Once you've selected Run Zap, click Create Zap. Once again, you'll be taken to the Zap editor where the trigger step will be preselected for you.

Click Continue to test your trigger. Zapier will find a recent conversation with your chatbot to use as your sample data. If you haven't yet had a conversation with your chatbot, you can go back and create one.

Next, click Continue with your selected record. 

Now it's time to add an action app to your Zap. You might want to send those conversations to Google Sheets or Zapier Tables, so your team can analyze those conversations later on. Or you could send those conversations to your sales team's CRM in Slack. It completely depends on what you're trying to achieve by logging those conversations. 

Once you've finished setting up your Zap, remember to publish it. Now, every time that a user finishes a conversation with your chatbot, the details will land neatly in the app of your choice. 

Add a link button

Want a way for users to book time with you—without all the back and forth? You can add a button directly to your chatbot for exactly that.

To set this up, select Link button from the list of options.

From there, you can choose to include this button at the very beginning of a conversation or when specific keywords are used (like "meeting" or "call"). Once you've customized the button text and icon, you just add a link to your specific scheduling tool (think Calendly or Clockwise) in the Button link field. That way, prospects and customers can easily book time with you directly from their conversation with your chatbot.

Remember to click Create button once you're done so that it saves properly. 

Generate suggestions

You can also add suggestions—or conversation starters—to your chatbot in your Logic tab. Suggestions refer to the type of questions users can select at the start of each conversation (or after every chatbot response) with your chatbot.

To set this up, select Suggestions from the menu of options.

You'll see that the chatbot will generate some pre-made suggestions for you based on your chatbot's instructions. 

If you'd like to edit those generated suggestions, just click into the boxes with the pre-generated copy and type out your changes. To add a suggestion, click +Add suggestion.

Because my chatbot is an editorial bot, I'll add in some new suggestions related to writing and editing.

Once you're pleased with your conversation starters, click Create logic.

Now, whenever someone uses your chatbot, they'll see the conversation starters you set up. Here's mine as an example:

If you want a bit more flexibility, you can also use AI to generate personalized suggestions at the beginning of the conversation or after every chatbot response. This AI feature will generate each suggestion based on each user's reply or question, helping your customers get quicker, more relevant answers in real time.

On mobile devices and in embedded pop-up chatbots, suggestions are limited to two items with an option to view more—that way, the suggestions don't dominate the conversation space.

Adjust your chatbot's theme

Now for the fun part: styling your chatbot. To change your chatbot's appearance, click the Theme tab in the left-hand panel of your screen.

You can add your own avatar or embed your logo and any other company-specific icons that will personalize and brand your chatbot to align with your corporate identity.

You can also change the colors of your chatbot to match your business or product colors. You can use pre-made themes, set specific brand colors, or select colors individually. And for a chatbot that's not quite as bright, you can enable dark mode.

On the right side of your screen, you'll see your chatbot, which will reflect your selections as you pick them. When you're happy with how it looks, click Save changes.

Integrate your chatbot in other apps

In addition to triggering workflows directly from your chatbot, the Zapier Chatbots integration in the Zap editor lets you use your chatbot to power all the other apps you use, like Facebook Messenger, Slack, and Zendesk.

For example, if you receive a lot of messages from potential customers on Facebook Messenger and want your chatbot to handle them, you could create a Zap that automatically sends each message to your chatbot. The chatbot then generates a reply using its knowledge sources, and Zapier responds in Messenger on your behalf.

The same setup can also apply to inquiries you receive by email or customer support tickets submitted to platforms like Zendesk. By connecting your chatbot to these apps, you're able to scale support and streamline customer communication.

You can even build Zaps that answer employees' questions directly in a thread whenever a question is posted in specific channels in Slack or Teams. And, with the ability to upload your own company files to these chatbots, your teams can get support with accounting, sales, content, and more—all without ever leaving their team chat app.

To get started, head over to the Integrations tab in the left-hand panel.

You'll see that we offer a few templates to get you started. If you don't see the app you want to connect your chatbot to, you can select Build from Scratch. (You can use any app that Zapier supports as a trigger for your chatbot.)

Once you've selected an option, you'll be taken to the Zap editor. If you've selected Build from scratch, you'll need to start by selecting a trigger app. Then define the trigger event that will initiate the Zap and configure the rest of the fields.

Next, Zapier Chatbots will be pre-selected as your action app and Generate Reply to Message as the action event.

Configure it by selecting the appropriate chatbot, mapping the message field from your trigger step, and testing the response. 

Finally, you'll have another action step to send the chatbot’s reply back to the original app. Select your action app and event, then select or connect your account if you haven't already.

Next, configure the fields by mapping your chatbot's output to the appropriate message or response field.

Once you've finished customizing this step, remember to test and turn on your Zap. You'll be able to see any Zaps you set up this way directly in your Integrations tab within your chatbot.

You can also set up Zaps directly within the Zap editor if you prefer. We offer pre-made workflows to get you started:

Select your AI model

By default, your chatbot will use OpenAI's GPT-4o mini, but there's support for Anthropic and other OpenAI models. To customize the AI, click AI Model in the left-hand panel.

Then add your API key from your OpenAI or Anthropic account, pick the model you want, then adjust the creativity slider as desired. The closer your creativity value is to 1, the more inventive the chatbot will get with its answers. 

If you're not sure "inventive" is what you're going for, test different options out—you can always see how the chatbot will respond using the chat panel on the right-hand side of the window.

Change your settings

To play with advanced options, go to the Settings tab in the left-hand panel.

Here, you can customize your chatbot's name and the user message placeholder text. The latter is the instructional copy that'll show in the message box for the users, so they know what to ask the bot.

You can also customize what users see if OpenAI is having technical problems that prevent the chatbot from responding. So instead of a generic system error, you can show a polite response with a phone number or email that users can contact to continue getting help. 

You can choose to display a disclosure message in your greeting, too. And you can customize both the text that will be shown in your browser title and the subdomain of your bot.

Log conversations

Now once folks start using your chatbot, you'll want to see the full conversation history your users are having in your Zapier account. 

This is especially useful if you're building a support or lead chatbot, as you can learn about customers, spot trends, and refer back to conversations. 

To see your chatbot's conversation log, click the Conversations tab in the left-hand panel.

You'll be able to search through past conversations using keywords and export selected logs, so you and your team can analyze them or use them to refine your chatbot's responses and improve future interactions.

Get chatbot insights

Want to see how your chatbot is performing—and how many conversations your chatbot starts generating? In the Analytics tab in the left-hand panel, you can see a breakdown of relevant metrics.

Those metrics include the number of conversations, messages, and clicked URLs (with the exact links provided, for detailed tracking). Further down, you'll find more conversation insights—like top keywords, daily sentiment score, and sentiment distribution.

Test, share, and embed your chatbot

Next, it's time to test your chatbot to make sure everything is running smoothly. You can do this directly in the builder on the right-hand side of the page, or you can click Share in the top-right corner of your chatbot's setup page. 

If you click Public link, you'll be able to provide access to anyone with the link or disable the public URL. When you click on the link itself, this will take you to the full chatbot experience.

For my editor chatbot, I added a blog topic and asked for some quick editorial guidance.

The chatbot uses the knowledge source I added, sticks to the specific instructions I gave it, and provides clear instructions. 

You should also double-check that any Zaps you set up are working properly by clicking on the appropriate buttons. For example, when I clicked Send to Slack for review, the chatbot's response was immediately sent to the Slack channel I directed. 

If everything's working correctly, you can now share your chatbot with your team. To do this, just click Editors in your Share settings and type the name of any member of your team.

To embed your chatbot in your site, click Embed in your Share settings. 

You'll have two options. You can choose the Pop up option, which lets you overlay the chatbot and fix it to the bottom-right of a webpage, or the Inline option, which lets you embed your chatbot inline with your content.

Did you know? You can use Zapier Interfaces to build a landing page that showcases all your chatbots in one place. It’s an easy way to build a clean library of resources for customers or coworkers to browse.

If you're on a Team or Enterprise plan, you can transfer ownership of your chatbot to another team member. Just click the Change owner icon in your chatbot's Share settings. Next, type out the name of the member in your Zapier account you want to transfer ownership to and click Change owner.

That way, as your team grows or roles change, you can easily manage your chatbots—keeping ownership clear, collaboration smooth, and workflows moving without interruptions.

Use a pre-built template

Need a little inspiration to get you started? You can use one of our pre-built chatbot templates to help you along:

Bring the power of chatbots to your team

Just think of all the ways these chatbots could speed up your work processes. They're powerful tools to help you improve everything from team communication to career growth. 

With Zapier, you can create your own custom chatbot in a matter of minutes, helping you streamline the way you work. Have an idea for a chatbot that could benefit your team? Get experimenting!

This article was originally published in April 2023. It was most recently updated in September 2025 by Elena Alston.