Quests, token leaderboards, and a skills marketplace: The elite AI adoption playbook | John Kim (Sendbird)

Sendbird co-founder and CEO John Kim transformed his company into an AI-native organization by building an internal platform called Automators, where non-technical teams built a fully functional e-commerce swag store with Stripe integration in days and automated their own CRM and recruiting workflows. The company tracks AI adoption through a token usage dashboard with five tiers from beginner to "AI God," treating internal AI usage as a product to be measured and gamified rather than mandated. Kim rewrote job descriptions to prioritize curiosity and agency over years of experience, signaling that the shift to AI-first operations requires cultural change as much as technical infrastructure.

John Kim is the co-founder and CEO of Delight.ai, a customer experience platform that’s transforming how companies deploy AI. But what makes John’s story fascinating isn’t just his product; it’s how he’s turned his entire company into an AI-native organization. His marketing team built a fully functional e-commerce swag store with Stripe integration in days. His sales team built their own CRM tools. His recruiting team automated their entire workflow. And it’s all tracked, measured, and celebrated through an internal platform called Automators. Listen or watch on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts What you’ll learn: How Sendbird’s marketing team built a fully functional swag store with Stripe integration in a day with no engineering support How the Automators platform works—an internal marketplace where anyone can request AI tools and engineers or AI agents can build them How to create secure, compliant templates so non-technical teams can ship to production safely How Sendbird built a token usage dashboard with five tiers beginner through AI God and why tracking the smoothness of the curve matters more than the total Why visible leadership usage is the most powerful adoption signal Why Sendbird rewrote job descriptions to prioritize curiosity, agency, and energy over years of experience How John uses AI for his own learning Brought to you by: WorkOS —Make your app enterprise-ready today ThoughtSpot —Build AI-powered analytics into your product In this episode, we cover: 00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY Introduction to John Kim 02:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=165s The Delight.ai swag store built by marketing in two days 05:51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=351s The before times: when fun had to earn its place on the roadmap 07:55 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=475s Demo: The Automators platform and quest system 13:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=827s The AI Engineer for Internal Operations role 16:06 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=966s Demo: The company-wide skills marketplace 17:19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=1039s Treating AI adoption as a product 18:43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=1123s Real wins: team-level and campaign examples 21:51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=1311s Why SaaS isn’t dead—it’s being rebuilt internally 23:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=1426s Demo: The token tracking dashboard 26:32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=1592s Measuring without fear: setting expectations, not punishments 28:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=1734s Quick recap 30:51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=1851s Personal AI use cases: endless knowledge at your fingertips 36:15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH39OZ-KnkY&t=2175s Lightning round and final thoughts Tools referenced: • Claude Code: https://claude.ai/code https://claude.ai/code • Codex OpenAI : https://openai.com/codex https://openai.com/codex • Obsidian: https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md • GitHub: https://github.com https://github.com • Stripe: https://stripe.com https://stripe.com Other references: • Jason Levin CEO of Memelord on How I AI: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/from-a-690-newsletter-to-3m-api-how https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/from-a-690-newsletter-to-3m-api-how • Konami Code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami Code • Andrew Huberman’s podcast: https://hubermanlab.com/ https://hubermanlab.com/ • Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ Where to find John Kim: Instagram: https://instagram.com/dosh https://instagram.com/dosh LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doshkim/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/doshkim/ Company: https://delight.ai https://delight.ai Delight.ai Spark Conference May 7, SF : https://delight.ai/spark https://delight.ai/spark Where to find Claire Vo: ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email email protected /cdn-cgi/l/email-protection .