Zapier销售主管Grady Sokaras在公司内部AI研讨会的开场环节中，用一句话点出了Zapier所售产品的本质。
Grady Sokaras, Zapier’s head of sales, opened a session at the company’s private AI retreat with a line about the kind of product Zapier sells.
“工具永远不是解决方案，”Sokaras说道。一家企业购买产品却指望由此实现转型，得到的只会是“多一份依赖，或是又一款搁置的软件”。
“A tool is never the solution,” Sokaras said. A company that buys the product and expects a transformation gets “one more piece of dependency or shelfware”.
此次研讨会名为“Zapier Outpost Windsor”，于9月8日至10日在泰晤士河畔温莎附近的Oakley Court举行。Zapier承担了受邀的二十余位企业运营与AI领域领导者的机票、食宿费用，笔者亦在受邀之列。当天的议程由Zapier AI转型总监Philip Lakin和Zapier AI领袖实验室负责人Alex Maxwell主持。
The retreat was Zapier Outpost Windsor, held at Oakley Court, on the Thames near Windsor, from 8 to 10 September. Zapier covered flights, lodging and meals for the twenty-odd enterprise operations and AI leaders it invited, me included. The day’s sessions were led by Philip Lakin, Zapier’s director of AI transformation, and Alex Maxwell, who runs Zapier’s AI Leaders Lab.
Maxwell抛出的首个数据并非来自Zapier，而是源自MIT NANDA：企业AI项目中95%未能带来可衡量的ROI，涉及支出高达300亿至400亿美元。“这是一个系统设计问题，”幻灯片上写道。TNW此前也曾报道过这一鸿沟，包括麦肯锡的AI生产力悖论、AI输出给他人造成的知识衰退，以及星巴克的库存管理工具。
The number Maxwell opened with was not Zapier’s. It came from MIT NANDA: 95% of enterprise AI initiatives fail to deliver measurable ROI, across some $30bn to $40bn in spending. “This is a system design problem,” the slide read. TNW has covered the same gap, including the McKinsey AI productivity paradox, the knowledge decay that AI output creates for other people, and Starbucks’s inventory tool.
采用不是终点 Maxwell将Zapier自身的历程比作“在自己身上做开胸手术”。Zapier举办黑客马拉松、任命推广大使、建立熟练度评估标准、追踪日活数据。幻灯片显示AI采用率达100%，“每个团队，每一天”。首席执行官Wade Foster在其公开文章中将这一数字定为97%。
Adoption is not the finish line Maxwell framed Zapier’s own journey as “performing open heart surgery on ourselves”. Zapier ran hackathons, appointed champions, built fluency rubrics and tracked daily usage. The slide put AI adoption at 100%, “every team, every day”. Chief executive Wade Foster puts the figure at 97% in his published account.
“采用不等于转型。一个AI素养高的组织，若不改变工作本身，只是在以更快的速度做着同样的事，”下一张幻灯片写道。
“Adoption is not transformation. An AI fluent organization that doesn’t transform the work itself just gets faster at the same thing,” the next slide read.
英国企业AI采用呈现“广度扩张而非深度深化”态势。Zapier的观点是，95%的失败率并非技术问题，而是组织设计问题。在Zapier的实战手册中，设计意味着角色、激励与用例架构。
UK business AI adoption has been widening, not deepening. Zapier’s argument is that the 95% failure rate is not a technology problem but an organisational design one. Design, in Zapier’s playbook, means roles, incentives and use-case architecture.
Sokaras 描述了一种公司在实现 AI 转型和变革管理中取得成效的组织所具备的结构，Zapier 自身也是按此方式运作的。
The three roles that have to exist Sokaras described a structure the company sees in the organisations that get results in AI transformation and change management. Zapier runs itself the same way.
第一是 C 级发令者。高层必须下达指令，且指令必须包含约束条件。“在不增加人手的情况下实现更多增长”这种目标行得通，而笼统的鼓励则不行。
The first is a C-level issuer. Someone at the top sets the mandate, and the mandate has to carry constraints. A target of more growth without more headcount works. Open-ended encouragement does not.
“如果没有约束条件，只是要求人们改变，他们是不会改变的，”Sokaras 说。
“If there are no constraints and you’re just asking people to change, they’re not going to change,” Sokaras said.
最大的断层出现在下一级，即副总裁、总监和高级经理层面。这些人掌握着奖励机制，但指令很少延伸到他们自己的考核指标中。
The biggest gap opens one level down, among VPs, directors and senior managers. Those people control the reward structures, and the mandate rarely reaches their own numbers.
第二是 AI 转型公会。成员来自不同业务线，公会工作写在他们的职责描述里，而非额外叠加。其 30% 到 40% 的工时被正式分配给公会事务。
The second is an AI transformation guild. Members come from different lines of business, and the guild work sits in their job description, not on top of it. Thirty to forty percent of their time is formally assigned.
第三是业务线中的授权用户，即那些能发现值得解决问题的人。他们不需要亲自构建任何东西，只需充分了解可能性，以便识别工作流程中哪里出了问题。
The third is empowered users in the lines of business, the people who spot problems worth solving. They do not need to build anything. They need to understand what is possible well enough to recognise where the work is broken.
以上三者之上，设一名 AI 转型总负责人，对交付结果负责。Sokaras 称该角色为“问责的唯一对象”。三类用例，与一场伏击基于角色的用例不产生对系统的依赖。一个人让自己的工作更高效，无人依赖其产出。
Above all three sits a single AI transformation leader, accountable for delivery. Sokaras called the role the “single throat to choke”. Three types of use case, and one ambush Role-based use cases create no dependency on a system. One person makes their own work faster, and nobody else relies on the output.
基于团队的用例则不同，因为多人依赖该产出。Sokaras 此时建议引入运营团队。上游的一个变更可能导致下游所有人的工作中断。Sokaras 称之为“伏击式优先级排序”。
Team-based use cases are different, because several people rely on the output. This is where Sokaras told the room to bring in the operations team. A change upstream can break the work of everyone downstream. Sokaras called that “prioritization by ambush”.
组织级用例（如 IT 服务台）以业务系统和运营团队为起点，视作产品需求。用例可向上演进。Lakin 表示，五个人各自构建同一仪表盘的不同版本，这是一个信号，而非五个解决方案。
Org-based use cases, such as an IT helpdesk, start with the business systems and operations teams, as product requirements. Cases can move up the ladder. Five people building their own version of the same dashboard is a signal, Lakin said, not five solutions.
证据：一个工作流带来 120 万美元 Zapier 自身的案例是一个常驻的 AI 销售开发代表工作流。Zapier 生命周期营销团队的 Leah Miranda 发现了这个机会。人工版本每个线索需要 30 到 45 分钟的调研时间，而热线索会迅速变冷。
The proof point: $1.2m from one workflow Zapier’s own example was an always-on AI sales development representative workflow. Leah Miranda, on Zapier’s lifecycle marketing team, spotted the opportunity. The manual version cost 30 to 45 minutes of research per lead, and warm leads went cold.
当目标账户与内容互动时，工作流被触发。它调研公司、从 HubSpot 提取联系人并起草个性化邮件。客户经理在 Slack 中审核资料包，确认无误后才发送。
The workflow triggers when a target account engages with content. It researches the company, pulls the contact from HubSpot and drafts a personalised email. An account executive reviews the package in Slack before anything goes out.
屏幕上的数字：120 万美元管线商机、创建 184 笔交易、每位客户经理每周节省 10 小时、每年回收 480 小时、释放 4.5 个全职等效人力、避免 1.5 万到 2 万美元的工具支出。数据来自 Zapier 自身，我未做核实。幻灯片称其为团队的里程碑：高价值、跨职能、领导层可见。Lakin 表示，这样的案例能让人们建立信心。
The numbers on the screen: $1.2m in pipeline and 184 deals created, 10 hours a week saved per account executive, 480 hours a year reclaimed, 4.5 full-time equivalents unlocked and $15,000 to $20,000 of tooling avoided. The figures are Zapier’s own, and I have not verified them. The slide called it the team’s landmark: high-value, cross-functional and visible to leadership. A case like that, Lakin said, is what gets people believing.
现场的反驳声 最犀利的交锋来自一位在机器人流程自动化时代就跑过这套打法的人。冠军人物能腾出 20% 的时间。一个月后，冠军的经理又把时间填满了。Lakin 说，在这种情况下，对齐的领导力从未真正到位。
What the room pushed back on The sharpest exchange came from someone who has run this play before, in the era of robotic process automation. A champion gets 20% of their time. A month later the champion’s manager has filled the time back up. In that case, Lakin said, the aligned leadership was never really there.
“除非你创造时间，并通过薪酬激励、时间安排展示你真正重视它，否则这永远不会发生，”Lakin 说。
“Unless you create the time and you show that you actually value it, what you compensate, what you incentivize, and what you create time for, it’s never gonna happen,” Lakin said.
现场的供应商 每位与会者都可以免费引入 Zapier 的前置部署工程团队来构建一个用例，无论最终是否运行在 Zapier 上。
The vendor in the room Every attendee can bring in Zapier’s forward-deployed engineering team to build one use case for free, whether or not it runs on Zapier.
“与 AI 协作是一项人的变革管理工作，人们需要快速获得回报，才会觉得这事儿跟自己有关，”Sokaras 说。
“Working with AI is a human change management exercise, and people need fast rewards to feel like it is something that is for them,” Sokaras said.