A Framework for Implementing AI Across Your Company

Every founder I know is asking the same question: "How should we actually implement AI across our company?"

The reality is that every playbook will require customization, but there are clear patterns beginning to emerge.

In this episode, Chetan Narain, Cofounder of Pepper, joins me and my colleague, Interplay Senior Partner Kevin Tung, to share how Pepper is integrating AI across its products and organization - and the lessons they've learned along the way.

We discuss:

• Where vertical SaaS ends and vertical AI begins

• AI agents and guardrails

• Organizational redesign

• How to move fast without creating chaos

If you're building a company and thinking beyond AI features toward AI transformation, I think you'll enjoy this conversation.

⏱️ Chapter Markers:

00:00 — Intro — Implementing AI across your company and why it matters now

01:23 — Where vertical SaaS ends and vertical AI begins: dashboards → autonomous agents

03:36 — Pepper 101: the $1T food distribution opportunity

05:37 — Pricing agents: moving from recommendations to action

08:42 — Trust, autonomy, and guardrails for mission-critical workflows

09:33 — ROI you can prove: GP lift and attribution clarity

11:25 — Experiments that broke: letting non-tech teams ship code

14:21 — Pepper's "product build system": AI-reviewed PRDs and prototypes

19:22 — Organizational design: single-threaded ownership vs. diffusion

23:03 — Speed traps: building 4 prototypes ≠ faster outcomes

24:22 — Kevin Tung on logging mistakes and compounding intelligence

26:10 — A/B testing as a sandboxed guardrail

27:02 — Chetan's path: Google PM to first PM of Uber Eats

29:37 — COVID pivot: Pepper Pantry hits $10M run rate in a week

32:57 — Distributor-first model: white-labeled apps and trust

34:33 — If king for a day: accelerating tech adoption in food

36:31 — Early adopters and tailwinds across 20k+ distributors

38:11 — Wrap and takeaways

Links:

• Chetan Narain: LinkedIn

• Pepper: Website, LinkedIn

• Interplay: Website, LinkedIn, X

• MPD: LinkedIn, X