The Innovator’s Playbook

Bolt-On AI Is Failing — Ankush Goyal on Reinventing Commerce

What happens when AI stops being a feature and becomes the foundation of commerce itself? In this episode of The Innovators Playbook Podcast, host Seth Narayanan speaks with Ankush Goyal, CPTO of Fabric. From scaling Orbitz to building an AI-native CRM at RelateIQ and Salesforce, and transforming post-purchase platforms at Narvar, Ankush reveals why legacy rule-based systems are no longer enough. He argues that bolt-on AI is a dead end, that product and technology leadership must converge, and that engineers who fail to evolve beyond coding will be left behind.