Zapier's CEO Will Grade Your AI PM Skills Live

Zapier CEO Wade Foster wrote the AI fluency rubric that kicked off a wave of companies grading PMs on how they use AI. In this episode, he grades 3 PM artifacts live, from a PRD written with ChatGPT to a full agent stack with a nightly triage swarm, and explains why only about one PM in 30-40 should earn a transformative rating. Then he opens up his own robot staff, including the scribe that cut two hours of end-of-day cleanup to 15 minutes. Full Writeup: https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/zapier-ai-fluency-rubric-for-pms Transcript: https://www.aakashg.com/how-zapiers-ceo-grades-pms-on-ai-fluency/ Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 02:39 - How Zapier measures AI fluency 06:53 - Where most PMs should sit on the curve 09:17 - Ads 11:23 - How one PM built Zapier's company brain 13:22 - Grading PRD one, written with ChatGPT 24:43 - Slop cannon or turbo brain 29:55 - Grading PRD two, prototype plus customer evidence 38:03 - Grading PRD three, the full PM agent stack 46:07 - Why not every PM should build the factory 48:17 - Wade's robot staff, from morning brief to scribe 57:06 - Why Wade vibe coded a CEO CRM 1:01:56 - Why transformative is an n of one 1:03:45 - Zapier since 2021, headless SaaS and new competitors 1:12:55 - Outro 🏆 Thanks to our sponsors Arize - Ship AI agents and features faster with fewer regressions - https://arize.com/?utm_source=aakashgupta&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=arize_sponsor_ai Get a full year of Arize’s paid plan, along with 8 other AI tools, at bundle.aakashg.com Key Takeaways 1. Basic AI use is the floor, not the bar - Summarizing, drafting, looking things up and generating a basic PRD are table stakes at Zapier in 2026. Everything above that line needs structured, reusable systems for specs, prototypes and research. 2. Adaptive is where the curve should sit - Zapier wants most PMs at adaptive most of the time, with one transformative example to point to. Living at transformative full time means you are tuning your systems instead of shipping. 3. Transformative means an n of one - Wade's bar is that you are the first person doing a new thing and figuring it out as you go. On a team of 30 to 40 PMs, that is roughly one rating a half, and Wade grades himself as adaptive in most places. 4. You should be ahead of your CEO inside your own discipline - Wade should be behind his PMs on PM-specific AI fluency. When he spots a technique that is obvious to him and new to the PM, he gets nervous. 5. Never stop at the PRD - A document alone reads old-fashioned in 2026. Build the prototype with a coding agent, even though production code is not the PM's job, because seeing is believing. 6. Evidence got cheap, so there is no excuse - Sift Gong calls, Zendesk tickets, subreddits, LinkedIn and X before asking anyone for buy-in. The buy-in conversation now happens after you have proof, not before you start. 7. Judgment separates a turbo brain from a slop cannon - AI plus judgment looks like watching a new species get invented. AI without judgment generates so much noise that it is harder to work with than a teammate who uses no AI at all. 8. Label the effort level when you share AI-assisted work - Say whether you skimmed it once or stand behind every sentence. Handing over unreviewed output just moves the judgment onto the reader. 9. The job shifts from doing tasks to auditing the factory - When agents handle spec, prototype, eval and first-draft code, your job is to ask why the machine produced a bad batch. Where to put the human gates is the design question nobody has solved yet. 10. The new no-code is code, and the user is now the agent - Zapier's bet is deterministic execution in the cloud, so workflows run reliably without burning tokens or keeping a laptop open. If your software cannot run headless, you are swimming against the current. 👨‍💻 Where to find Wade Foster LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster X: https://x.com/wadefoster 👨‍💻 Where to find Aakash Twitter: https://x.com/aakashgupta LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagupta/ Newsletter: https://news.aakashg.com #AIFluency #ProductManagement 🧠 About Product Growth The world's largest podcast focused solely on product + growth, with over 200K+ listeners. 🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications.

Aakash GuptahostWade Fosterguest

Sep 14, 20261h 14mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: September 14, 2026
Duration: 1h 14m
Channel: Aakash Gupta
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Zapier CEO Wade Foster wrote the AI fluency rubric that kicked off a wave of companies grading PMs on how they use AI. In this episode, he grades 3 PM artifacts live, from a PRD written with ChatGPT to a full agent stack with a nightly triage swarm, and explains why only about one PM in 30-40 should earn a transformative rating. Then he opens up his own robot staff, including the scribe that cut two hours of end-of-day cleanup to 15 minutes. Full Writeup: https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/zapier-ai-fluency-rubric-for-pms Transcript: https://www.aakashg.com/how-zapiers-ceo-grades-pms-on-ai-fluency/ Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 02:39 - How Zapier measures AI fluency 06:53 - Where most PMs should sit on the curve 09:17 - Ads 11:23 - How one PM built Zapier's company brain 13:22 - Grading PRD one, written with ChatGPT 24:43 - Slop cannon or turbo brain 29:55 - Grading PRD two, prototype plus customer evidence 38:03 - Grading PRD three, the full PM agent stack 46:07 - Why not every PM should build the factory 48:17 - Wade's robot staff, from morning brief to scribe 57:06 - Why Wade vibe coded a CEO CRM 1:01:56 - Why transformative is an n of one 1:03:45 - Zapier since 2021, headless SaaS and new competitors 1:12:55 - Outro 🏆 Thanks to our sponsors Arize - Ship AI agents and features faster with fewer regressions - https://arize.com/?utm_source=aakashgupta&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=arize_sponsor_ai Get a full year of Arize’s paid plan, along with 8 other AI tools, at bundle.aakashg.com Key Takeaways
1. Basic AI use is the floor, not the bar - Summarizing, drafting, looking things up and generating a basic PRD are table stakes at Zapier in 2026. Everything above that line needs structured, reusable systems for specs, prototypes and research.
1. Adaptive is where the curve should sit - Zapier wants most PMs at adaptive most of the time, with one transformative example to point to. Living at transformative full time means you are tuning your systems instead of shipping.
1. Transformative means an n of one - Wade's bar is that you are the first person doing a new thing and figuring it out as you go. On a team of 30 to 40 PMs, that is roughly one rating a half, and Wade grades himself as adaptive in most places.
1. You should be ahead of your CEO inside your own discipline - Wade should be behind his PMs on PM-specific AI fluency. When he spots a technique that is obvious to him and new to the PM, he gets nervous.
1. Never stop at the PRD - A document alone reads old-fashioned in 2026. Build the prototype with a coding agent, even though production code is not the PM's job, because seeing is believing.
1. Evidence got cheap, so there is no excuse - Sift Gong calls, Zendesk tickets, subreddits, LinkedIn and X before asking anyone for buy-in. The buy-in conversation now happens after you have proof, not before you start.
1. Judgment separates a turbo brain from a slop cannon - AI plus judgment looks like watching a new species get invented. AI without judgment generates so much noise that it is harder to work with than a teammate who uses no AI at all.
1. Label the effort level when you share AI-assisted work - Say whether you skimmed it once or stand behind every sentence. Handing over unreviewed output just moves the judgment onto the reader.
1. The job shifts from doing tasks to auditing the factory - When agents handle spec, prototype, eval and first-draft code, your job is to ask why the machine produced a bad batch. Where to put the human gates is the design question nobody has solved yet.
1. The new no-code is code, and the user is now the agent - Zapier's bet is deterministic execution in the cloud, so workflows run reliably without burning tokens or keeping a laptop open. If your software cannot run headless, you are swimming against the current. 👨‍💻 Where to find Wade Foster LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster X: https://x.com/wadefoster 👨‍💻 Where to find Aakash Twitter: https://x.com/aakashgupta LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagupta/ Newsletter: https://news.aakashg.com #AIFluency #ProductManagement 🧠 About Product Growth The world's largest podcast focused solely on product + growth, with over 200K+ listeners. 🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications.

SPEAKERS

Aakash Gupta
host
Host of Product Growth with Aakash Gupta, focused on product management and AI-driven growth.
Wade Foster
guest
CEO and co-founder of Zapier, focused on automation and AI-enabled product workflows.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Aakash Gupta, featuring Aakash Gupta and Wade Foster, Zapier's CEO Will Grade Your AI PM Skills Live explores zapier CEO grades AI PM fluency: from PRDs to factories Zapier’s updated AI fluency rubric grades PMs from unacceptable to transformative based on concrete behaviors, with basic AI drafting now considered table stakes in 2026.

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