AI & Zapier in Action: 7 examples

I spent the week looking for people using OpenAI and Zapier in the most practical ways.

Ever heard this before? “99% of people don’t know how to use AI. Here are 10 prompts to supercharge your work.”

‍I’ve seen this opening line 9,999 times. I don’t know about you, but these types of posts are getting a bit old to me!

Prompts are cool, but I want to see the super practical ways to use AI (plus, you can just ask ChatGPT to help you write a prompt for ChatGPT. It’s pretty simple).

So I spent the week looking for people using OpenAI and Zapier in the most practical ways. Today, I’m going to share with you what I found (that you can use today).

Let’s dive in.

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Take Back Your Inbox

Devin Reed posted about using Zapier and OpenAI to summarize emails he receives.

(note: anytime you send personal information from an email to OpenAI you do
have to be careful not to violate any local regulations. I’m no email law
expert. Just sharing for inspiration.)

Send all new emails into Zapier automatically.
Have OpenAI summarize the email.
Format a Slack message.
Create a digest to hold the summary.
Release the digest in the evening with all emails from the day.

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Goodbye Virtual Assistant

Ari Meisel posted about using Zapier and OpenAI to forward an email thread he had going with a
new contact to automatically schedule a meeting with relevant content.

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Forward email exchange to Zapier.
Use OpenAI to pull out relevant information prompt.
Contact info
Calendar event details
Context about how he knows the person, if possible.
Create calendar title, location, start and end times, attendee emails.
Find contact in Google Contacts
Create Calendar event
Send an email to yourself with details

Spark Notes for Zoom (with a twist)

Does anyone ever actually read notes someone takes from a meeting? Maybe just
a skim. With this example your team will be looking for the post-meeting notes
like a child waits for the ice cream truck.

New Zoom recording is uploaded
OpenAI uses whisper to transcribe meeting
OpenAI summarizes meeting, along with possible action steps and owners
OpenAI creates a haiku poem for meeting with as much safe-for-work humor as possible.

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Let’s be honest: the gold is in the poem.

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Teach Communication

You may have seen this. Danny Richman posted about
using Zapier and OpenAI to help “a young lad with poor literacy skills who is
starting a landscaping business.” The Zap re-writes a simple email as a
professional one.

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New email sent in Gmail
OpenAI re-writes in a professional manner
Send email back with revision
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From “Sally I am starts work at yours monday from dave” to “Dear Sally, I hope
this email finds you well. I am writing to let you know that I will be
starting work with you on Monday. I am really looking forward to getting
started…”

I’m not a big advocate of AI writing personal emails on your behalf. But, in
this case, someone with a disability like Dyslexia may need the extra help.

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The Overnight Writing Coach

I’m a fan of using robots as coaches. They listen well and ask great questions. Here’s how to use AI to receive
daily feedback on your writing.

Write in a Google Doc
Sends to Zapier
Delay until end of day
Find Google Doc to grab text
OpenAI to write constructive feedback
Append feedback to the Google Doc

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Wake up the next morning with feedback waiting for your review.
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Automate Your (re)Search

You know what research often looks like nowadays? Searching on Google. Here’s
an example of how to automate basic research for a potential guest list for
your podcast:

Post in a Slack channel the name of a potential guest
Reactji on post to trigger a Zap
OpenAI takes potential guest name and finds:
What they’re known for
Website and social links
Location
Contact info (if possible)
Update a Guest List Ideas Google Sheet

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I set up this automation for the Write of Passage team behind David Perell’s
upcoming How I Write podcast.

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Save Face at Work

Here’s an example coming from Mike Lambert who used Zapier and OpenAI to better communicate his
emotions at work.

Send five most recent Slack messages to Zapier
Have OpenAI describe the sentiment of the messages using three words and an emoji
Update Slack status with the result

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I’d change it up and have it send me a Slack DM with the results instead of
automatically setting my status. Mike mentioned that this Zap helps him check
his tone. If it’s not great, he can adjust to ensure he’s not being a jerk to
his team.

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To recap:

Prompts are just the tip of the A-Iceberg (you can create prompts easily by simply asking ChatGPT to help you
Zapier helps put AI into action

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I’m on a mission to continue finding practical ways you and I can practically
use Zapier and AI. I hope this first post about it helps!

That's all for this week!

Happy Building,
Bryce