Your Support Team Should Ship Code – Lisa Orr, Zapier
Dec 16, 2025 · 16:06
Lisa Orr of Zapier explains how the company empowers its support team to ship code using AI, tackling the app erosion caused by 8,000+ third-party integrations. Initially, they built an API playground that failed due to lack of workflow embedding, then pivoted to MCP tools in IDEs, but the slow Diagnosis tool led to an asynchronous agent. The resulting Scout Agent autonomously categorizes tickets, assesses fixability, generates merge requests, and enables rapid iteration in GitLab. Today, Scout drives 40% of support's integration fixes, doubling individual velocity from 1-2 to 3-4 tickets per week. Orr highlights support's three superpowers: closest to customer pain, real-time troubleshooting, and best at validation, with some team members becoming engineers.
