Aaron Levie on AI's Enterprise Adoption

a16z Podcast

a16z

Science, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Disruption, Software Eating The World, Technology

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, a16z General Partner Martin Casado sits down with Box cofounder and CEO Aaron Levie to talk about how AI is changing not just software, but the structure and speed of work itself. They unpack how enterprise adoption of AI is different from the consumer wave, why incumbents may be better positioned than people think, and how the role of the individual contributor is already shifting from executor to orchestrator. From vibe coding and agent UX to why startups should still go vertical, this is a candid, strategic conversation about what it actually looks like to build and operate in an AI-native enterprise. Aaron also shares how Box is using AI internally today, and what might happen when agents outnumber employees.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What is the journey over the next decade?
0:03.0	It's about the speed at which humans can change their workflows.
0:06.0	Why doesn't the breakthrough that we just saw get released?
0:09.0	Why isn't that permeate every corporation within six months?
0:12.0	It's so strange to me how many disruptions are happening all at the same time.
0:16.0	Your R&D is changing.
0:18.0	Yeah.
0:19.0	Every part of the stack is changing.
0:20.0	Like everything. We're not in like... Every part of the stack is changing. Like everything.
0:23.5	We're not in like a fear of AI world.
0:24.3	We're in a... We know this is going to happen.
0:25.8	And it needs to happen to us faster than it happens to our competitors, which is a totally
0:30.3	different dynamic than we saw with cloud.
0:32.1	What do you think is the best metric for anybody interested in tracking this stuff as far as
0:36.1	like how fast this going. Is it GDP? Is it margin? Is it top line? Is it headcount growth? Is it all the above?
0:44.0	It's basically fully assumed that AI is going to take over the enterprise.
0:48.5	How does AI actually change the enterprise? Not just in theory, but in how software is built,
0:53.6	sold, and used.
0:55.1	In today's episode, A16Z general partner Martin Casado sits down with Aaron Levy, co-founder
1:00.3	and CEO of Box, to explore what it means to be an AI-first company from product strategy
1:05.1	to internal workflows. They talk about why incumbents may be better positioned than expected,
1:10.2	how startups can
	...

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