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Brandon Sammut
Brandon Sammut is Chief People & AI Transformation Officer at Zapier, an AI orchestration platform powered by a roughly 750-person, all-remote team spanning more than 40 countries. He previously served as Chief People & Culture Officer at LiveRamp, and holds an MBA and M.Ed. from Stanford, along with earlier roles at Teach For America and Owl Ventures.
Layering AI Over Old Workflows Doesn't Get You Meaningful Gains
Brandon's clearest argument is that AI represents a shift closer to the introduction of the internet than any typical piece of new software, which is why tools, frameworks, and governance alone aren't the real opportunity. His central claim: "you can't get meaningful improvements in efficiency and quality without redesigning what the humans are doing," meaning organizations that simply bolt AI onto their existing processes miss most of the value. At Zapier, that philosophy shows up concretely: every role on his People team and across the company is being rebuilt with AI at its core, Zapier evaluates both job candidates and existing team members against an explicit AI fluency framework, and the company deliberately raised compensation from the 50th to the 90th percentile as part of a "talent density" strategy tied to AI-era performance expectations. He argues AI initiatives should be judged by whether they improve the quality of output, not just how much time or money they save.
Topics Brandon speaks on
- Why layering AI over old workflows fails to deliver meaningful gains
- Building an AI fluency framework for hiring and evaluating talent
- "Talent density": raising compensation as an AI-era strategy
- Why HR is uniquely positioned to lead AI transformation, not just support it
- Internal mobility and secondment programs
Sessions with Achieve
Brandon is a featured presenter on the Achieve webcast "AI readiness in practice: Leading with people, not just tools" (October 8, 2025), alongside Heather Conklin of Torch. The session covers how HR leaders can drive genuine AI readiness by focusing on people and workflow redesign, not just tool rollout.
Connect
Want more on what it takes to redesign work around AI, instead of just layering AI on top of it? Learn more about the Achieve Leadership Network.