How CTOs Use AI

Neel Jain

How CTOs Use AI features candid conversations with engineering leaders at growth-stage SaaS companies about how AI is really landing on their teams. Each episode digs into what's actually working, what's not, and how these leaders are making decisions in real time — without the polish of a keynote stage. Expect real numbers, real mistakes, and real judgment calls, not hype. New episodes regularly. Subscribe if you're building software and want to know what's actually happening one level below the headlines.

Episodes

  1. Oct 15

    How To Rebuild a Platform to be AI Native

    In this episode of How CTOs Use AI, Neel Jain talks with Joydeep Roy, Global CTO at Source Intelligence, about why his team skipped bolting AI onto existing processes and rebuilt the platform, and the SDLC itself, from the ground up. They did it without giving up security, architecture, or operational discipline. In this episode: Why Source Intelligence unified five legacy companies into one AI-native compliance platform, and why MCP is becoming table stakesHow hackathons and PRD-driven iteration won over the engineering teamWhy PRDs now start as markdown files an agent can consume, and how an intake package of requirements, guardrails, and golden rules drives the buildThe agent that asks what, why, and how, and writes no code until every question is answeredCognitive debt: why it’s the new technical debt, and how documented plans fight itMicropods: replacing two-pizza teams with one engineer and one product owner, each owning a PRD and its end-to-end flowsDropping two-week sprints for daily iterations and weekly demosMeasuring ROI by how fast reliable features reach customers, not by lines of code or velocityMoving QA to risk-based testing and agentic coverageThe unsolved PR review bottleneck, and the idea of routing PRs by blast radius to humans or agentsWhy open-source models and orchestration may be the future, plus Joydeep’s AI-powered wildlife photography habit (and its toll on his camera gear budget)Guest: Joydeep Roy, Global CTO, Source Intelligence Host: Neel Jain

  2. Sep 24

    The 5 AI Guardrails Every Team Needs Before Production

    Ruby Agarwal, VP of Engineering at Avaya, shares the framework she uses to decide when AI belongs in a workflow, when regular automation is enough, and how to keep costs, reliability, and governance under control.If you’ve ever been told to “just throw AI at it,” this conversation offers a practical reality check. Ruby explains why AI decisions should start with business outcomes, how much intelligence a task truly needs, and how much authority an AI system should have before it reaches production.You’ll discover: The three questions to ask before using AIWhy AI is best suited to the intelligence layer—not always routine executionHow caps, budgets, alerts, and model defaults help control AI spendWhy context length, retry limits, and routing rules matterThe production guardrails every team should consider, including observability, audit logging, access boundaries, and a kill switch Ruby also shares practical examples from engineering workflows, including when AI makes sense for test generation and troubleshooting—and when it becomes an expensive overreach.This episode is especially useful for CTOs, engineering leaders, platform teams, and anyone responsible for moving AI from demo to dependable production.

  3. Aug 7

    How 8 Figure CEOs Use AI

    AI is already reshaping how CTOs build software, but the biggest wins are not where most teams expect. Rajiv Jain and AJ reveal where productivity jumps by 30% to 150%, why new builds are getting faster while legacy code still creates friction, and how the real bottleneck is shifting from writing code to judging its quality. Rajiv Jain, founder of Thinksys, has spent 14 years scaling a 500-person engineering company that supports software development, QA, DevOps, and security. AJ, founder of Pulso People and a software engineer with 20+ years of experience, brings the operator's view from the staffing and delivery side. Together they break down how AI is changing the software development lifecycle from the inside out. You'll discover: Why AI is delivering the strongest gains on greenfield development, QA automation, and maintenance of test scriptsHow teams are using story points, Jira tickets, and token budgets to measure real ROI instead of AI hypeWhy guardrails matter more in 2026 as unrestricted AI spend gives way to disciplined usage and proven returnHow agentic AI is starting to handle manual QA by reading Jira tickets, running tests, and logging bugs automaticallyWhy the hardest new challenge is testing non-deterministic, LLM-powered applicationsThe everyday tools both leaders actually use, from Claude workflows and Chrome extensions to Granola for meeting notes The episode also exposes a new management problem: when AI makes it easy to add code, bloated applications and unreviewed outputs become real risks. Rajiv and AJ explain why engineering teams now need to get better at saying no, enforcing quality gates, and training people to verify AI-generated work instead of blindly trusting it. If you're leading engineers, managing AI budgets, or trying to figure out where AI creates measurable leverage versus hidden cost, this conversation gives you the practical lens you need. Essential listening for CTOs, founders, engineering leaders, and anyone trying to turn AI from a buzzword into a durable productivity advantage.

  • 3 Episodes

About

How CTOs Use AI features candid conversations with engineering leaders at growth-stage SaaS companies about how AI is really landing on their teams. Each episode digs into what's actually working, what's not, and how these leaders are making decisions in real time — without the polish of a keynote stage. Expect real numbers, real mistakes, and real judgment calls, not hype. New episodes regularly. Subscribe if you're building software and want to know what's actually happening one level below the headlines.

Information

  • Creator
    Neel Jain
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Neel Jain
  • Show Website
    How CTOs Use AI