Building AI Agents for Everyone

Gumloop (YC W24) is an AI agent builder used by companies like Shopify, Gusto, and Instacart. It lets employees build and share agents that automate work across their existing tools, while IT controls security, data access, and costs. In this Fireside, co-founders Max Brodeur-Urbas and Rahul Behal talk to Y Combinator General Partner Gustaf Alströmer share how better models transformed their visual workflow builder into an agent platform, what they learned from 1,100 customer calls, and how one power user helped them land Instacart. They also explain why bringing agents into tools like Slack drives adoption and why the people who understand a task should be the ones automating it—to help teams do more, not simply replace them. https://www.gumloop.com Chapters: 00:00 — The AI Agent Builder for Every Team 03:38 — From Workflow Automation to Enterprise AI 07:20 — What It Takes to Win Enterprise Customers 11:02 — How the Founders Met and Got Into YC 15:00 — How Gumloop Uses Its Own Agents 18:02 — Landing Shopify and Rethinking Pricing 21:23 — Fundraising and the Limits of Staying Lean 24:35 — Letting Employees Automate Their Own Work 27:43 — Building Agents Companies Can Control 31:23 — Getting IT to Say Yes Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs

Gustaf AlströmerhostMax Brodeur-UrbasguestRahul Behalguest

Oct 2, 202634mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: October 2, 2026
Duration: 34m
Channel: YC Root Access
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Gumloop (YC W24) is an AI agent builder used by companies like Shopify, Gusto, and Instacart. It lets employees build and share agents that automate work across their existing tools, while IT controls security, data access, and costs. In this Fireside, co-founders Max Brodeur-Urbas and Rahul Behal talk to Y Combinator General Partner Gustaf Alströmer share how better models transformed their visual workflow builder into an agent platform, what they learned from 1,100 customer calls, and how one power user helped them land Instacart. They also explain why bringing agents into tools like Slack drives adoption and why the people who understand a task should be the ones automating it—to help teams do more, not simply replace them. https://www.gumloop.com Chapters: 00:00 — The AI Agent Builder for Every Team 03:38 — From Workflow Automation to Enterprise AI 07:20 — What It Takes to Win Enterprise Customers 11:02 — How the Founders Met and Got Into YC 15:00 — How Gumloop Uses Its Own Agents 18:02 — Landing Shopify and Rethinking Pricing 21:23 — Fundraising and the Limits of Staying Lean 24:35 — Letting Employees Automate Their Own Work 27:43 — Building Agents Companies Can Control 31:23 — Getting IT to Say Yes Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs

SPEAKERS

Gustaf Alströmer
host
Y Combinator partner and host/interviewer on YC Root Access.
Max Brodeur-Urbas
guest
Co-founder of Gumloop, speaking to product, go-to-market, and fundraising.
Rahul Behal
guest
Co-founder of Gumloop, discussing technical/product details and his background (incl. Amazon).

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of YC Root Access, featuring Gustaf Alströmer and Max Brodeur-Urbas, Building AI Agents for Everyone explores gumloop’s enterprise agent builder: employee automation with IT governance and control Gumloop is an enterprise agent-building platform that lets any team create and share AI agents while giving IT centralized governance over data, permissions, and observability.

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