Are human-first teams possible in the age of AI? ft. Brandon

Building deeply human teams in an increasingly automated world may sound like an oxymoron - but it isn’t. In fact, it should be #1 on your priority list. In this episode of The Future is Human, host Naomi Trickey welcomes Brandon Sammut, Chief People and AI Transformation Officer at Zapier, to explore why maintaining human connection is your competitive advantage, how to design AI adoption that enhances rather than replaces human creativity and the leadership behaviors that scale culture across 900+ distributed team members. From Zapier's three-pillar impact model (efficiency, quality, employee experience) to practical approaches for remote-first cultures that thrive, this episode unpacks it all.

Building deeply human teams in an increasingly automated world may sound like an oxymoron - but it isn’t. In this episode of The Future is Human, host Naomi Trickey welcomes Brandon Sammut, Chief People and AI Transformation Officer at Zapier, to explore what it takes to build said teams.

What You’ll Learn:

How to structure AI adoption around leadership, talent and culture rather than technology alone
The Three-Part Impact Framework that Zapier uses for successful AI adoption
Why performance management should reward business outcomes, not AI adoption
How purposeful in-personal moments help maintain human connection at scale in the remote work context
The advantage of hiring from non-traditional backgrounds and dropping degree requirements
Why AI fluency means cultivating liberal arts skills like critical thinking, empathy and discernment - not just technical skills
The "Talent Renaissance" model for distributed work for diversified workflows

This conversation reminds us that AI isn’t here to replace humans. It’s here to elevate them.