Welcome to the ninth episode of Oh, Shift!: Agentic Software Leader Series, where we cut through the hype and have candid conversations with software leaders navigating the seismic shift of the AI era. This series is designed for founders and operators who are focused on building internal AI momentum without relying on silver-bullet thinking.

In this episode, host Rick Watson talks with:

Karthik Marudur, VP of Strategy at OneStock, a founder-led order management platform used by retailers to orchestrate complex omnichannel operations. Karthik’s a veteran of retail tech and supply chain—he helped build large-scale OMS programs and brings a pragmatic, ‘business-problem-first’ view to AI.

We go inside a founder-led Order Management Software company where a quiet internal bot has already rewired sales, support, and product—and a new ‘config agent’ aims to turn six months of set-up into minutes. If you’re leading teams through AI without rewriting everything, this one’s for you.

OneStock's AI initiatives include a configuration agent that compresses traditional setup times from months to minutes by dynamically configuring and simulating order workflows, improving operational efficiency and profitability. They build a data lake from sources like Confluence and Jira to power AI tools that assist sales, marketing, product, and development teams. Security and privacy are managed carefully, with legal teams involved in testing.

Marudur emphasizes the importance of measuring the adoption and ROI of AI tools, maintaining agility in technology choices, and evolving from internal experimentation to co-innovation with customers.

The discussion also covers the emerging role of MCP in providing contextual, conversational AI experiences beyond traditional APIs.

The episode highlights a pragmatic, business-focused approach to integrating AI in SaaS retail solutions, advocating for starting small, learning continuously, and aligning AI efforts with real business outcomes.

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