Today on the Newcomer Podcast, we’re at MongoDB.Local for a series of conversations on how enterprise AI is actually being built.

MongoDB CEO CJ Desai joins the show 65 days into the role to explain why San Francisco is “back,” how MongoDB is repositioning itself for the AI era, and why unstructured data has made the company’s platform a natural foundation for AI-native applications. He shares his view on the AI hype cycle, the rapid rise of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, and why MongoDB is staying model-agnostic as AI product cycles accelerate.

We also sit down with Rippling’s Head of AI Ankur Bhatt to discuss how AI is being deployed inside a live enterprise system. The conversation covers building agents across payroll, IT, and finance, why agent identity and accountability matter, and how Rippling is approaching permissions, access control, and AI-driven productivity at scale.

A grounded look at the enterprise AI stack, from the data layer to real-world deployment.

MongoDB #Rippling #AIAgents #VentureCapital