ChatGPT Writes the Steps. Zapier Runs Them. I Stopped Asking One to Do the Other.

I kept wishing ChatGPT could just do the thing instead of describing it. So I'd paste a workflow and ask it to execute, and it would cheerfully invent an API call that didn't exist. Zapier was the opposite problem: it moves data perfectly but has no idea why the step matters.

The split that finally worked: ChatGPT drafts the recipe in plain language, I confirm the logic, then Zapier executes the known path. The model is my architect; the automation is my foreman. Neither is good at the other's job, and pretending otherwise is how you get a zap that emails the whole company by mistake.

A real example: I wanted every new Typeform response to land in a sheet, get a summary, and ping Slack. ChatGPT wrote the plan and the prompt for the summary; Zapier did the routing. When I tried to make ChatGPT 'handle it all,' I ended up hand-fixing JSON it hallucinated.

Verdict: use ChatGPT to figure out what should happen, Zapier to make it happen on repeat. If your bottleneck is thinking, the model wins; if it's repetition, the plumbing wins. Most teams need the pair, not a replacement.