Ariel Cohen: How Navan Leveled Up with a Pivot to AI

Generative AI took the world by storm with the launch of ChatGPT, and set companies worldwide scrambling to catch up to the possibilities. Navan, the only integrated business travel and expense solution, knew it had to run hard towards AI. Navan co-founder and CEO Ariel Cohen sat down with host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano to discuss the mechanics of shifting a big company on the fly, and how Navan managed to pull it off. Episode Chapters (00:00) Introduction to Ariel Cohen and Navan (06:39) How Navan makes business travel less of a headache (10:11) Navan leverages personalization to make bookings more efficient (12:38) Leveling up on expense tracking through innovation (17:34) How a company with a $500 million run rate ran hard towards AI (23:29) UI’s post-AI future (25:29) The mechanics of pivoting a 3,000 person team in a new direction (29:09) Will AI be a platform shift? (33:07) Navan uses AI to make expenses a breeze (39:09) A look into the year ahead for Navan (39:58) Is Navan hiring? Stay in touch: ⁠⁠⁠www.lsvp.com⁠⁠⁠ X: ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/lightspeedvp⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightspeed-venture-partners/⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/lightspeedventurepartners/⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: ⁠⁠⁠generativenow.co⁠⁠⁠ Email: [email protected] The content here does not constitute tax, legal, business or investment advice or an offer to provide such advice, should not be construed as advocating the purchase or sale of any security or investment or a recommendation of any company, and is not an offer, or solicitation of an offer, for the purchase or sale of any security or investment product. For more details please see ⁠⁠⁠lsvp.com/legal⁠⁠⁠.