# Decagon differentiates by giving customers control of AI

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/decagon-differentiates-by-giving-customers-control-of-ai/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Jesse Zhang](https://realalpha.app/builders/jesse-zhang/) · Jesse Zhang is co-founder and CEO of Decagon. · Co-founded Decagon, a conversational AI platform for customer support, and previously founded Lowkey, acquired by Niantic.
- Host: [Joubin Mirzadegan](https://realalpha.app/people/joubin-mirzadegan/) · Partner, Kleiner Perkins · Took Palo Alto Networks' cloud business from $2M to $50M+ ARR in a year.
- Show: Grit
- Episode: [Inside Decagon: Finding PMF, Hiring Fast, and Scaling 10x](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/), Sep 21, 2026
- Moment: 36:16 to 41:20 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/decagon-differentiates-by-giving-customers-control-of-ai/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2176

## Quote

> “one of the main benefits of ai especially agentic ai is that it really **empowers people on the team** to do more”
> — [Jesse Zhang](https://realalpha.app/builders/jesse-zhang/) at [38:51](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2331) · Grit

## Takeaways

1. AI should let customer teams do more themselves.
2. Agents are built, tested and monitored in the product.
3. Customer ownership is central to Decagon’s differentiation.

## About this segment

Jesse Zhang contrasts Decagon’s product-led deployment with a services-heavy model. Customers build, test and monitor agents in the product, keeping control of the results and process.

From “Inside Decagon: Finding PMF, Hiring Fast, and Scaling 10x”, Sep 21, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[36:28](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2188) your thoughts on that um yeah maybe uh maybe i can just like zoom out contextualize everything so historically we don't really talk about competition etc just because like the space is actually like pretty noisy and there's like all these different things going on i think now is a little bit more solidified i think we're a bit more established sierra is more established and so i think we have a more clear perspective on on the two um and i think broadly like when you're building company i'm sure you relate to this like um like everyone so you you want to build a culture where like you know you're the main character right like we we just we view the world as like we're the main character there's like all these challenges and competitors that might be out there but like it doesn't really matter like

[37:11](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2231) we're kind of on our journey so we want to want to come up with things from first principles and like you know again like we're the main character on our journey um if i could hand select like a competitor would i have chosen brett taylor probably not it's like if you could choose like who you're competing against like you know the ex-ceo of salesforce and cto of facebook like yeah obviously we have a lot of respect for them but that's just like that's not how life works you know life it's a very honest and true you're like uh you're on your own journey and you like challenges will come up so you have to deal with them yourself right and like that's how that's how we view it and so like you know if we're good then we should figure out a way around it so the way the way i with this like from my perspective at least this space has played out is you know

[37:58](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2278) you have sierra they're very good at uh getting into like enterprises and they're uh you know they've scaled their team really quickly and you know i'm sure brett is great at talking with leaders and obviously that's a skill that you know we've we've developed um but their deployment model is uh more similar to like a palantir where they they're really focused on you know forward point engineering and hey like we can do it for you or like trust us right we have really smart people and we can we can solve the problem for you end to end and uh i think our our main thesis right and like this is again it's like not in the context of cr like when we were first starting the company our main thesis for like hey what is our viewpoint on this space is that model doesn't really make that much more sense that much sense as the ai models get better like that model makes

[38:53](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2333) a lot of sense where like hey you're a big enterprise you maybe don't have the talent internally to like move at that speed or like kind of do something and so working with a partner having them do everything for you could be attractive but one of the main benefits of ai especially agentic ai is that it really empowers people on the team to do more and so if you think of like cloud code or stuff like that it's like yeah you can have a non-technical people that can build a lot more now than they could before so that's like a big theme of ai right so our whole thesis is like hey can we create a deployment model where you know we're still going to be white glove because again we're working with enterprises it's never just going to be like here's software go use it so we start we still have like people that are staffed

[39:34](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2374) but it's more about how can we empower your team and how can we deliver a end result that is like fully in control of your team right so like everything that's get built that gets built is not code it's not like you know something that engineers have to go and configure every time or you have to ask us to come and configure it it is in the product so it's like can you build a product where the ai is fully in there it gets built it.

[40:00](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2400) In the product, it's tested in the product. All the conversations that it's having, you can monitor in the product. And that's kind of the main thesis, right? It's like kind of this deployment model where, you know, ultimately the customer owns the results and the process. so yeah i mean we think that is probably a big differentiation right now right like back to the point of you know we're in a space where there's a lot of sort of defaults right like if there's all these big platforms like salesforce and google like you can use their solutions um you know maybe you know like you know brett well and and yet we're winning a lot of these big deals and so the only way we can do that is through product. And obviously, I hope they like me and they like our team, but it's like you have to build a product that is superior. And the way we've

[40:52](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=2452) done that so far, at least, is kind of a product that really enables people to build and empowers them and makes it so that the AI is owned by them. Was there a part of the company as it grew that you feel maybe like an org or a function