How Stripe Built Kai, Its Internal AI Agent Used by 10,000+ Employees Weekly
TLDR
Stripe's engineering manager shares how the company built Kai, an internal AI agent serving 10,000+ weekly users, covering governance, infrastructure, and rollout lessons.
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Lenny's Newsletter published an interview with Sharadh Krishnamurthy, an engineering manager at Stripe, who discusses Kai, the company's internal AI agent used by more than 10,000 employees weekly. Krishnamurthy covers why Stripe built Kai from scratch rather than purchasing existing tools, how the company structured its data layer for safe agent queries at scale, and the governance mechanisms—including a "projects" system—that enable employees to use AI safely regardless of technical background. The discussion also touches on infrastructure lessons, skill-building workflows, and operational challenges Stripe encountered as agents scaled.