Navan CEO Ariel Cohen on 40% revenue growth, AI-powered travel booking, and building proprietary models for 30% of calls

Okay. Shopify founded 2006. Shrek had been out for five years. They could have gone with green because of Shrek. Well, we have a green light on our next guest, Ariel Cohen from Non. He's the co-founder and CEO. Let's bring him in from the waiting room and talk to him about how Non is doing. How are you doing? Welcome to the show.

Hi, how are you? Thank you so much.

Got to be feeling pretty good.

Feeling great. Business is fantastic. Is it time to go do the 24-hour lemon? Are you going to get into racing?

No. This quarter was actually really, really good and the business is doing really amazing.

What's driving it? I mean, I feel like there's so much up and down with SAS apocalypse and are people just going to be using AI for everything or is the economy going to collapse? Is the is travel going to go down because of gas prices? Like what were all the factors of risk? And then how do you overcome them?

Yeah, first of all, what drives the business travel is really, you know, the need of people to be there together to meet face to face uh to we actually that's our main belief. Our main belief is that people uh wants to meet close businesses, build teams, get to interviews and to do it face to face. And this is what we are powering and it's so important and you've mentioned gas prices. We're coming out of the quarter that you have TSA strikes, you had gas prices, you had, you know, you had a major two storms in the US in January. All of these things and we had an amazing quarter. We grew our usage by 50%. So, yeah, it's huge. It's our revenue went up by 40%, our usage by 50%. Uh, and this is in this quarter. So, it tells you how much it is important for people to be there together. Uh, if they're willing to go through storms while doing that. Uh and this is kind of what drives our business.

Yeah. Um what else operationally is changing in the a in the age of AI? Are you uh token maxing? Are you deploying AI agents all over the place? Are you launching AI features for folks or are you taking a more measured approach?

You know, we don't use AI like as a slogan. We always take an approach of first of all what our user needs,

what our customer needs

uh and then what can we deliver to them. So even before AI became you know fashionable uh we are like I'm talking about in 2016 we are heavily using machine learning in the platform to heavily personalize the you know the results that we are giving you. The way that we are saving money uh to companies when they book travel through us, companies are saving 15% 15 of their entire travel budget uh when they use us.

Exactly.

And then you know when Genai came we really took it to the next level. So today uh the Noan platform you can go to Navan edge which for you it's kind of for a personal level if you're a business traveler but your company you either don't like the solution or your company is not really managing travel uh this is an AI platform we chat there with with Nvan Edge we know you we connect to your every loyalty club that you have and then we are optimizing your entire booking you're telling us you want to be in London and we'll book your flight your hotel your restaurant events while you're on the trip, everything while you're on the go. And this is really driven by Genai. But even when you get support from us, you basically chat with Ava and we completely orchestrated there when we use an AI agent when when we use a real life agent and completely orchestrating both. And this is very very unique. Nobody is doing that.

Is anything on the go to market side changing? I mean you it's it's odd because so much of the pitch is like face-toface meetings need to happen and so I imagine a lot of that's not changed your sales force is probably having face-to-face meetings with companies that want the product and want to understand the business uh before they partner up but is anything accelerating there because obviously when you look at a big 40% jump in revenue you have to ask you know unpack that

yeah there are there are different drivers there I would say that AI is actually a big part of this but from a different reason. First of all actually most of the AI companies are using us right including open AI and entropic and carouser and so on. So that's definitely uh there but really the AI driver is that right now in every enterprise you have AI initiative coming from the top and NAN is one of the only uh B2B company on an enterprise level that can come and tell you because of AI I will save your employees the most important employees in the company the sales team the C level I will save them a lot of time when they need to change their trip when something is happening in the airport how they are expensing we completely. You know, we use our own credit card. You're expensing your entire TN including your meals. There is not such thing of itemizing your receipt from the hotel and itemizing the mini bar expense and whatever. So, we save a lot of time and we save a lot of money and all of this is driven by AI. So, we ride on the AI initiative in the market in the in the organization. But also from a go-to market perspective, we shared it yesterday. On the other side, you know, we sell to the biggest enterprises in the world. But on the other side, PLG, uh we've more than doubled last year. And this is completely driven by AI. Uh because marketing is significantly more efficient when you when you're actually using AI. Um, I remember years ago, almost in like the pregenai era, Google launched a feature that would let you uh sort of almost agentically but like programmatically call a restaurant and their robot or something would would talk to the restaurant and try and book you a reservation. And I'm wondering about obviously there's a ton of lowhanging fruit inside the platform where AI can speed up search and ranking and uh classification itemizing the mini bar as you mentioned. Uh there's so many different features for AI to run wild inside the platform but are you experiencing uh opportunities to go outside of the platform? Okay, there's a company, there's a cool hotel, but their system is not integrated, not on any of the travel sites, but we'd love to bring it to that. And we can by autonomously going and writing an integration or even just making a phone call. There's so many times where a receipt didn't come. It was a glitch in their system. I have to call to get the receipt. It's a back and forth. An AI agent should be able to do that, but where is that on the road map? You should first of all you should do product management in Novan because you just described a lot of NAN features and I'll I'll actually explain it. So uh you know everything that you described comes down that to

the connectivity to the physical world and especially if it is complicated. Travel is super complicated. We have an infrastructure. We actually have by far the best travel infrastructure in the world. It means that we are connected globally. to everything that is out there uh every airline through different ways every hotel buses rail globally all over the world. So when you have that connectivity there are so many things that you can do but to your point uh sometimes there is no API uh you cannot change a flight a day before 24 hours before the flight by going to an API you have to call the airline right but to your kind of you kind of touch the use case that we love here

uh when you're when you pay later you basically pay in the hotel for the booking that you did

uh if you'll not show up on time that's up to 11:00 p.m. they going to cancel their reservation.

So, you need to call them and reconfirm the reservation.

That's right.

Give them a credit card and tell them keep that thing. Now, think about it. You are on a flight stuck on a flight. You know that you're going to be late. The amount of pressure or you're just late or you just nobody called on your behalf. Uh we actually have our own AI bot that is calling the hotel automatically having a discussion over the phone saying, "Hey, uh I will arrive." uh we take the name of the person that confirmed them. We are giving a virtual card to secure the transaction. It's automatic, right? And then we push to the app to the travel app to Navan. We push the confirmation and we are saying we talked with that guy in the reception because it's all manual. We talked with that guy in the reception and he secured your room. This is all AI. Uh so no cost. But think about the amazing amazing amazing uh service that we just gave you. And this is when I say I don't see AI as kind of a fashion. I'm looking at like is there a use case that I can generate value to you the user, the traveler, the executive assistant, uh the accountants like you know we do auto reconciliation for the entire trips of all of the company. So we are saving tons of time for the really big recon recon reconciliation teams that the big companies have. So that's kind of how we use the AI. We have our own platform. It's called Navan cognition that orchestrate it all perfectly between the physical world and our AI capability. Sometime we use our own model. Uh we actually announced yesterday in the call that 30% of our AI calls are now our own model and not the frontier models or open source. So that's actually pushes us farther. It makes us more accurate uh faster, raises customer satisfaction and obviously it's also cheaper.

Yeah. Very cool. Do you think now is the right time to start talking about non safety? Your your models are getting more and more powerful and uh and and maybe it's time for a national discussion about No, I'm kidding. Um

yeah,

but you know it's funny. We have something is called and we didn't release it yet. We announced it. We have something is called Bra and there the agent I'm sometimes joking and I'm saying the agent will do whatever it takes to put me on this flight.

Oh yeah. I mean, there's all those simulations like the vending machine benchmarks, things like that where the models

United and it's like I just looked up your boss actually and I'm going to I'm going to leave you a negative review. I'm going to

I'm going to if I'm going to short your stock,

I'm going to short your stock besides if you don't issue me this refund right now.

Help us uh help us uh out with this question. We were talking earlier on the show. It feels like TSA has gotten like remarkably better over the last 10 years. I used to remember like getting to the airport,

you know, an hour before the flight and thinking I might miss my flight, right? You know, or or maybe I have to try to ask TSA, hey, can I get through a little faster now? It seems like like no more than 30 minutes every time. Yeah,

it's pretty good. What's your what's your read?

It's a theory.

So, you know, I've mentioned Nan Edge earlier and you guys have to use it. I'm sure that you're traveling from time to time. So, just use it. Just slide out. But the cool thing there, it will send you a day before the trip, but also during the trip proactively. It's actually different types of agents there. Uh that will tell you, hey, the TSA pre-line, that's how long it will take you and that's how it long it takes you right now. Uh how long it will take you to get to the airport. Are there se specific interruptions right now? All of these things. So we actually know what going on with TSA. And it was actually interesting because to your point, it's actually significantly better. And obviously I have clear which is actually much better right now. And with the face and the identification it's actually much easier. But if you think about us, we going to really guide you and tell you what's in the airport right now. During the TSA shutdown, it was not as bad as the media described it. There were a lot of headlines. We actually were watching this and we were saying, "Yeah, there is some JFK issue right now." But by the way, JeffK has issues all the time and it's not as bad as as they're describing it. So I would actually that's why the platform is so strong because instead of taking the headlines, you can actually really see what's going on right now in the context of your trip.

Yeah. Talk about memory. Uh all of the AI apps are building memory functionality. People are, you know, collecting markdown files for different skills. And I can imagine a future where I have some sort of memory around my preferences. I like to fly direct. I prefer Burbank to LAX if possible. I like to fly at these hours. Here's my calendar. And what I really want is just like I'm going to San Francisco for two days. I have to hit this meeting and that meeting. And I would love to just be able to have the integration to Uber to book the car and then the Whimo when I'm in SF because Whimo works in SF and that's great. And then uh the hotel and everything just from start to finish booked in one flow uh automatically like how close are we to that? I imagine

you know I run products at Noan and I really really need to hire you daily. First of all we have our own memory component. It's our own development as part of Nan Cognition

and everything that you described we do already.

But it's actually more like you don't need me.

Yeah, but maybe it

but but here's the thing. So

people really care about their loyalty clubs, right? So we found a way to automatically when we on board you

to Nan Edge we automatically figuring out your number for any for every club.

Yeah.

Also your like your level.

Yeah.

Uh so that's the part the first component on memory. the second to your point to his loyalty club. Your biggest

the Arowan one

you always

he'll fly any he'll fly any airline but uh but

most people do care you know I know it's a big deal I I I actually have never in my career uh been on the road enough to get any sort of status. I think I got like I think I got like bronze here on Southwest once and told Trey Stevens at Founders and he laughed his

You and I are the complete opposite. Maybe I maybe I should not hire you. You and I don't travel that much. We we avoid travel.

Wait, but but way weigh in on how many minutes should you get to the airport before? Because I was making the claim that if you don't miss a flight every once in a while, you're not cutting it close enough and you're leaving time on the table. And Jord is this guy. He gets to the airport five sometimes six hours early for a domestic flight with no check bags. And and I just think I just think 30 minutes before the boarding starts is fine, but who would you side with between me 30 minutes before boarding starts? Jordy, five, six, seven hours sometimes before.

Maybe in between. Maybe in between. I think I think you too much for me. I don't want to be there 5 minutes before. I I would hate that. Okay.

But definitely I don't want to spend my entire airport on time.

Well, you know, you know, you know that airport lounges are catering to gamers now. This is in the Wall Street Journal. They're setting up video games. This is bullish for you. Bit of a video game addict.

Non. Navon Cognition. Preload my Call of Duty account onto the local computer. So when I get there, I'm already I want to be in the lobby on you. What do you think about what do you think about uh vibe coding lounges and airports? Do you think we could see like you know you got 5 minutes before your flight build the next hit app?

Yeah.

Could we see something like that?

You know what I Well, I think I think that people went so far with vibe coding and uh you know and the reality is that when you want to uh develop the real thing, you are definitely more efficient today, but you cannot vibe code your way to everything. It's like, so yeah, maybe you cannot vibe everything, you know, on the lounge at the airport. But I do see sometimes people vibe coding stuff while they're on a flight. I do see that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big one. And then they carry their back.

It's actually a thing right now.

With the lid open off the plane. I have friends who have been in that situation many, many times.

Yeah, you do see that.

I usually tra travel with anywhere from like 8 to 8 to 16 Mac minis and I store them above my seat. I just keep them running the whole time.

Yeah. And and what's weird the pilot

you you don't bring battery packs. You run it off a gas diesel generator, right? With a little camping stove and propane. You got propane there. I thought that they didn't allow you to get through TSA, but I guess you just go around.

Yeah, they're really they really make it hard to be running PE, you know, 20 open claw instances.

It's rough. It's rough, but hopefully in the future.

Anyways, great to hang with you. Congratulations on an awesome quarter. Uh love seeing the progress and uh Congratulations

travel. This is travel super intelligence. You're doing it.

We love it. Have a great rest today. We'll talk to you soon. Goodbye.

Let me tell you about console. Console builds AI agents that automate 70% of IT, HR, and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets.

A console lounge at the airport. A

console. That would be cool. Pull up this Shrek Luche.

Shrek luch. Oh, it has the head. It has the

It's got a tail.

Why is it so much more aggressive? No. Oh, no, no, no. This is a terrible AI image because Shrek is notably round. Like, he is very round. It needs to be more round, not sharp and and uh and all angular like this. I don't like this Shrek luch at all. I won't be buying it. I won't be buying this. Looks like a Mansori Shrek Luche. Give me the ultra rounded uh you know, ogre in the swamp. Ideally, put the whole car in a swamp.

All right.

Anyway, we're working on that. We're cranking on that. The chat PVPN meta is is just generating images. Yeah. With chat and then doing an interview and then coming back

coming back to the image. Yeah, we do have our next guest uh Jeff from TensorWave hopping on in about 3 minutes. So, we will chat with uh him in just a few minutes. Uh there is an update on the uh anthropic Fable 5 safeguards for Frontier LLM development. Uh quote, they told Wired uh we're changing Fable 5 safeguards for Frontier LLM development to make them visible. uh we made the wrong trade-off and we apologized for not getting the balance right. Uh so that was a very surprising thing. A lot of people were asking like how did this happen? Like it's such an odd decision to secretly degrade the IQ semi analysis who is obviously

sorry I'm not laughing at this. I'm laughing at the the latest output. Um yeah, most notably it still is not going to allow you to use

Yes. But it will at least tell you like hey this is off limits. You got to contact support or something. So, uh, it it, uh, Dean Ball says it resolves the central concern I had with the fable release. That said, I suspect the residual broken trust and resentment this created will linger and have a blast radius wider than anthropic the next time I advocate for any policy justified by AI risk concerns. I almost guarantee you that this institute, this incident will be used in rebuttal. And so, uh, people are going back and forth on that. But there's, uh, you know, plenty of other news. I want to see this next output. So, let's pull that up. Uh Martin app I can't wait for you says imagine building a computer and not allowing its use in CS research. That's some that's very dystopian. Um and that's a good point. Yeah, if you're a young LLM researcher, AI researcher, you want to get on that path. That's what I'm looking for. That's what I'm looking for. The Shrek still it looks like it looks like Brabus

came took the luche and said we're doing the the official Shrek collab. It's still It's still a little too sharp for me. I don't know. It's still got some like there. The fact that there's even one clean line on that car. Not going to be purchasing the Shrek Luche. Uh the SpaceX IPO. The SpaceX IPO is SpaceX IPO day is going to be lit. Soulja Boy said this in 2015. What did he know?

What did he know?

What did he know? Okay, it doesn't exist. This is fake news. This is fake news two. According to this proposed note, the depicted 2015 tweet from Soldier Boy does not exist.

If you were going to fake this, why would you not say SpaceX will price at $135 a share?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The year 2020 in June of 2026.

But we got to apologize to Matt Zitelland because he said that retail demand for SpaceX shares would be uh incredibly high. Uh what he said was the idea that SpaceX is being quote dumped on retail is a little silly. Retail almost certainly wants to buy like 10x of whatever is available. And I was going back and forth. I was like okay like $70 billion. The retail allocation might be like 7 billion or something for this raise. Like are they really going to have 70 billion of demand for retail? And that's exactly what they have uh it's more now but Reuters said SpaceX IPO draws more than 70 billion in retail orders. And so, yes, this is not getting dumped on retail. Retail wants SpaceX stock very clearly. And what is it at now, Tyler? Get us up to speed.

The latest I saw was 100 billion.

100 billion of retail demand. Uh, they're said to increase capital.

Crazy.

Um,

really.

Nick Frost over at Coer is taking the other side. He doesn't like it. He says if you while we're on the Matt Zeland topic, Matt Zylon has a new great new article about uh all the different spin-off businesses uh from uh SpaceX over the years.

Um and how many other kind of like clean energy?

Uh are you talking about the SpaceX alumni like the mafia?

Full deep dive on all the different spin-off companies.

There's actually a website.

Check it out on heat map. uh if uh so obviously go check it out on heatmap but also alumnifounders.com has a website for uh for companies that were founded by SpaceX alums. When I first went to this website it was like a little logo block of like 10 companies. There's now 152 companies founded by SpaceX alumni. 13.5 billion raised. They've created 8,280 jobs and uh ranking them. Relativity has raised 1.8 billion. Base power has raised 1.3 billion. Impulse space has raised a billion. Uh Firefly has raised 800 million in the IPO public company now. Apex, Hermus, Radiant, uh Castellian. Wow. It's it's like every company. Cyntho, K2 Space, Ursa Major, Varta, obviously, uh, Reliable Robotics, StarCloud, uh, Revel, so many others.