Notion Podcast First Block: Interview with Jesse Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Decagon
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Nov 18, 2025 
Jesse Zhang, Co-founder and CEO of Decagon, shares insights on transforming customer service with AI agents. He discusses critical lessons from his previous startup experience, emphasizing the importance of intentional customer conversations. Jesse elaborates on Agent Operating Procedures for transparent and maintainable AI systems. He reveals how Decagon quickly built enterprise trust and achieved impressive customer impact metrics. Plus, he offers valuable advice for founders to trust their instincts and hire strategically for growth.
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De-Risk Pilots With Metrics And Human Fallbacks
- Quantify impact for customer service pilots using metrics like deflection and customer satisfaction to build a clear ROI case.
- Start with use cases that can escalate to humans to reduce risk and get pilots to production faster.
Speed Beats Long-Term Planning Early
- Early-stage focus on execution and rapid deployments builds enterprise trust faster than long-term planning.
- Decagon scaled quickly by optimizing for speed and dedicating engineers and product people to get customers deployed.
Models + Iteration Drive CX Gains
- Modern LLMs excel at conversational and transactional problems, enabling strong automated support performance.
- Fast iteration enabled by AOPs helps teams cover edge cases and rapidly improve deflection and satisfaction metrics.