CEO Defends Strategy — Exclusive

Ariel Cohen, the co-founder and CEO of Navan, has a story about how blizzards paralyzed the eastern U.S. in January, leading to hundreds of flight cancellations. Cohen’s travel management company used an AI-powered chatbot, Ava, which supplements human agents in handling the surge in customer requests. 

“Nothing worked,” Cohen claimed about competitors during the disruptions. “But we kept wait times for stranded business travelers to 1.6 minutes. Our customer satisfaction scores hit 95 out of 100.”

Six months after Navan’s IPO, Cohen deployed the anecdote twice on Tuesday at the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington, D.C., once in an exclusive interview with Skift and again onstage alongside Expedia Group CEO Ariane Gorin.

The CEO’s messaging was telling given that Navan’s stock opened Wednesday at $14, still 44% below its $25 IPO price. Cohen wants to convince investors and clients that his company has a competitive moat as an upstart challengin