Head of AI at Box: “Agentic” Has Become a Meaningless AI Buzzword...

90% of enterprise knowledge is locked in unstructured content. Most companies have no idea how to use it. In this episode, Yashodha Bhavnani, Head of AI at Box, breaks down what it actually takes to get real value from AI in the enterprise. Not the buzzwords. Not the experiments bolted onto the side of a product. The real infrastructure decisions that determine whether your AI strategy succeeds or stalls. She covers why the right model is irrelevant if your AI cannot see your data, how Box built its agent directly into its core product stack instead of shipping it as a sidecar experiment, and why enterprises face a governance and context problem that most AI vendors are not solving. She also shares the three-part future of work every product team and executive needs to plan for, what the J-curve of AI adoption actually feels like from the inside, and why the word "agent" has officially become meaningless. In this episode you will learn: [0:00] Why 90% of enterprise knowledge is stuck in unstructured content [1:26] Yashodha Bhavnani, Head of AI at Box, on the era of context [2:08] Why your AI strategy needs a content strategy first [5:03] How enterprises should organize their data for agents [8:06] The two layers of AI governance: hard security vs. contextual control [10:05] How Box thinks about permissions, compliance, and agent guardrails [10:53] The unstructured content explosion and what it means for your data stack [14:10] Principles Box uses internally to stay efficient and sane [16:27] How to build AI products that serve both humans and agents [18:26] Why this is a culture shift, not just a technology shift [20:43] The decision to build Box Agent into the core product, not alongside it [23:36] Three lessons for anyone leading an enterprise AI strategy [26:13] Will there be more agents than humans at work? [28:09] A real customer example: AI freeing analysts from lease compliance grunt work [30:25] How Box is adopting AI internally and what the growing pains look like [33:14] Rapid fire: the deeply held belief about AI that will be destroyed in two years [34:28] The one AI buzzword Yashodha would ban from every meeting [35:51] What she is most optimistic about with AI in the workplace Whether you are a CXO, product leader, or enterprise builder trying to move from AI experimentation to real deployment, this conversation gives you the clearest framework yet for unlocking your unstructured data, governing your agents, and building AI that actually sticks. #AIStrategy #EnterpriseAI #AIAgents #ProductManagement #FutureOfWork #BoxAI #UnstructuredData #CXO #KnowledgeWork #AILeadership