How this PM uses MCPs to automate his meeting prep, CRM updates, and customer feedback synthesis

MCPs, I will say, it's a concept that's really hard to understand for folks.

Yeah, definitely don't think about the word. It really just is like app integrations for your AI tools. You can create these collections of tools from all the apps you use and give them access to Claude, to ChatGPT, to Cursor, all the places that have inputs for MCP servers today.

I use agents all the time, but it is hard to break that muscle memory of this is a deterministic workflow versus an instructive agent, even if it has access to the same tools and can do the same things.

And when it comes down to it, the two things we see people wanting to do is, one, giving their favorite AI tool the access to knowledge that lives in their apps, as well as giving them the ability to actually do things in those apps. Those are the two things that if that sounds like something that you need in an AI app you use, look for MCP or connectors, as it's often being called now as well, for that. [upbeat music]

Welcome back to How I AI. I'm Claire Vo, product leader and AI obsessive, here on a mission to help you build better with these new tools. Today, I'm talking to Reid Robinson, product manager on AI at Zapier, and what I love about my conversation with Reid is he's gonna show us how to put MCPs to work inside Claude to take over tasks that you really hate. We also talk about whether AI can be the perfect always-on team that works while you sleep, and some use cases to make your kids and your partner a little happier. Let's get to it. This episode is brought to you by WorkOS. AI has already changed how we work. Tools are helping teams write better code, analyze customer data, and even handle support tickets automatically. But there's a catch: these tools only work well when they have deep access to company systems. Your copilot needs to see your entire code base. Your chatbot needs to search across internal docs. And for enterprise buyers, that raises serious security concerns. That's why these apps face intense IT scrutiny from day one. To pass, they need secure authentication, access controls, audit logs, the whole suite of enterprise features. Building all that from scratch, it's a massive lift. That's where WorkOS comes in. WorkOS gives you drop-in APIs for enterprise features, so your app can become enterprise-ready and scale upmarket faster. Think of it like Stripe for enterprise features. OpenAI, Perplexity, and Cursor are already using WorkOS to move faster and meet enterprise demands. Join them and hundreds of other industry leaders at workos.com. Start building today. Hey, Reid, thanks for joining How I AI.

Thanks for having me here, Claire. Excited to chat today.

What I love about how you've described your role at Zapier, which I use all the time, I say, is like load-bearing infrastructure over at ChatPRD [chuckles] is you've, you've worked your way into a role where you get to kind of like pick what you're working on next in, in AI. And so I'd love to hear about what you're focused on and how that's actually impacted how you think some of- about some of your personal workflows.