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:   / cnarain   Pepper: https://www.usepepper.com,   / usepepper   Interplay: https://interplay.vc,   / interplayecosystem  , https://x.com/interplay MPD:   / markpeterdavis  , https://x.com/mpd