Meet the 2026 Zappy Award winners: the builders who put AI to work

The 2026 Zappy Award winners demonstrated AI’s impact by improving metrics their companies already track, rather than launching company-wide initiatives. At Galgo, an AI system reduced invalid delivery evidence from eight percent to under two percent across over 3,000 monthly submissions. At Youtech, offline phone revenue previously invisible to ad platforms became attributable to paid search, totaling $213,000. Jobber’s Ethan Schwandt increased active Zapier builders by 122 percent in 30 days by focusing on practical enablement and scaling existing efforts.

The winners’ successes stemmed from grassroots efforts, not top-down mandates. Ethan Schwandt, Senior Manager at Jobber, connected leaders and builders to identify where AI and automation could reduce manual work or improve information flow. His approach emphasized hands-on enablement and post-experiment support, helping teams move from curiosity to useful applications. The strategy reinforced Jobber’s culture of building solutions collaboratively.

The Rising Star category recognized two recruiters who built systems to solve their own workflow challenges. Carlos created Rex, a 19-workflow system linking Ashby, Airtable, and Slack, saving up to 50 recruiter-hours weekly by automating Friday hiring reports. Doug, at Klaviyo, trained the Talent Acquisition team to build 57 workflows in three months, with 80 percent adoption and ten daily users. Both winners prioritized user feedback and built solutions where people already worked.

Other winners focused on targeted AI applications. At Galgo, Ignacio’s system used GPT-5-mini to classify invalid delivery photos, cutting review volume while maintaining human oversight. At Youtech, Justin’s offline conversion tracking matched paid-search clicks to phone revenue, attributing $213,000 previously invisible to ad platforms. BioRender’s Jocelyne automated follow-up drafts, reducing time from 15–20 minutes to three for 42 reps.