Kavak's Playbook for Rebuilding a Company Around AI

Angela Strange and Gabriel Vasquez are joined by Alejandro Maza Ayala, Chief Product & AI Officer at Kavak, to unpack how the Latin American used-car marketplace rebuilt itself around AI agents, with 96% of customer interactions and 95% of transactions now handled by agents. Alejandro explains why Kavak decided that simply giving employees AI tools wasn't enough, and instead redesigned the company's systems, teams, and customer experience around agents. They discuss why Kavak spends as much engineering effort on evals as it does building agents, how its AI sellers outperform its human teams, and an experiment where an AI "CEO" increased profits in one city by 50% in its first month. The conversation also explores what happens to organizational structure when agents do most of the work, why Kavak trains everyone from executives to mechanics to build with AI, and Alejandro's argument that companies looking for incremental AI adoption may be missing the larger opportunity: redesigning the organization itself. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:03 - Machine Learning Before Transformers 02:23 - What Kavak Does & the Agent-Per-Customer Architecture 04:59 - Three Bets: Redesign the Company, Build Superhuman Agents, Change the Metrics 10:49 - Agents That Sell: 2.1x Better Conversion Than Humans 14:23 - Car Loans Approved in Three Minutes 16:13 - The AI CEO Experiment: 1.5x Profits in Six Weeks 20:13 - The Jedi Academy: Training Mechanics to Ship Agents 28:44 - Destroying Two Years of Work: From Multi-Agent Graphs to One Agent Per Customer 32:52 - Creative Destruction & Ford's Factory: Why Adoption Isn't Enough 34:45 - Advice for Founders: The Most Exciting Time in Human History Resources: Follow Alejandro Maza Ayala on X: https://x.com/alehandromz Follow Angela Strange on X: https://x.com/astrange Follow Gabriel Vasquez on X: https://x.com/GEVS94 Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.

Alejandro Maza AyalaguestAngela StrangehostGabriel Vasquezhost

Aug 10, 202636mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: August 10, 2026
Duration: 36m
Channel: a16z
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Angela Strange and Gabriel Vasquez are joined by Alejandro Maza Ayala, Chief Product & AI Officer at Kavak, to unpack how the Latin American used-car marketplace rebuilt itself around AI agents, with 96% of customer interactions and 95% of transactions now handled by agents. Alejandro explains why Kavak decided that simply giving employees AI tools wasn't enough, and instead redesigned the company's systems, teams, and customer experience around agents. They discuss why Kavak spends as much engineering effort on evals as it does building agents, how its AI sellers outperform its human teams, and an experiment where an AI "CEO" increased profits in one city by 50% in its first month. The conversation also explores what happens to organizational structure when agents do most of the work, why Kavak trains everyone from executives to mechanics to build with AI, and Alejandro's argument that companies looking for incremental AI adoption may be missing the larger opportunity: redesigning the organization itself. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:03 - Machine Learning Before Transformers 02:23 - What Kavak Does & the Agent-Per-Customer Architecture 04:59 - Three Bets: Redesign the Company, Build Superhuman Agents, Change the Metrics 10:49 - Agents That Sell: 2.1x Better Conversion Than Humans 14:23 - Car Loans Approved in Three Minutes 16:13 - The AI CEO Experiment: 1.5x Profits in Six Weeks 20:13 - The Jedi Academy: Training Mechanics to Ship Agents 28:44 - Destroying Two Years of Work: From Multi-Agent Graphs to One Agent Per Customer 32:52 - Creative Destruction & Ford's Factory: Why Adoption Isn't Enough 34:45 - Advice for Founders: The Most Exciting Time in Human History Resources: Follow Alejandro Maza Ayala on X: https://x.com/alehandromz Follow Angela Strange on X: https://x.com/astrange Follow Gabriel Vasquez on X: https://x.com/GEVS94 Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.

SPEAKERS

Alejandro Maza Ayala
guest
Head of AI at Kavak, leading the company’s AI-native transformation and agent-based systems.
Angela Strange
host
a16z general partner and podcast host focused on fintech and software.
Gabriel Vasquez
host
a16z podcast host and interviewer covering technology and company-building.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of a16z, featuring Alejandro Maza Ayala and Angela Strange, Kavak's Playbook for Rebuilding a Company Around AI explores kavak rebuilt its org around AI agents per customer Kavak shifted from “AI adoption” to a full company redesign so agents could operate directly through rebuilt APIs, tools, and feedback loops.

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