Beginner9 min

Build Your First Automation in Zapier

Time to ship something. We will build a flow that watches a Google Form, asks an AI model to sort each response into a category, and logs it to a spreadsheet. This is the canonical beginner automation because every business has forms and everyone understands a spreadsheet.

Step 1: Pick the trigger

Create a new Zap and choose Google Forms as the trigger app, then the event New Form Response. Connect your Google account and pick the form. Zapier will pull a sample response so you have real data to map in later steps.

Step 2: Add the AI step

Add an action and search for the built-in AI step (in Zapier it is the AI by Zapier action; you can also use the OpenAI or Anthropic apps directly). You give it a prompt and feed in fields from the trigger using the field picker.

AI step prompt
Classify this support message into exactly one category:
Billing, Bug, Feature Request, or Other.
Return only the category word, nothing else.

Message:
{{1. Response}}

Step 3: Log the result

Add a Google Sheets action, Create Spreadsheet Row. Map the form fields into columns, and add one more column mapped to the output of the AI step. Now every response lands in the sheet already sorted.

Zapier - mapping the AI output
Google Sheets: Create Spreadsheet Row
Name = {{1. Name}}
Message = {{1. Response}}
Category = {{2. AI output}} <- from the AI step
CreatedAt = {{zap_meta_human_now}}
The AI step output becomes a column value.

Step 4: Test and turn on

Zapier - test run
# Zapier runs the whole Zap once with your sample
Trigger: pulled 1 form response
AI step: returned "Billing"
Sheets: row created in tab Responses
Test successful. Publish to turn it on.
$
Watch your task usage
Every step that runs counts against your plan. While testing, use the Test button rather than submitting twenty real form responses. Turn the Zap on only when it works end to end.

Result: submit the form, wait a few seconds, and a new sorted row appears in your sheet. You just built an AI automation without writing a line of code.

Hands-on tasks