Catalyst General CEO says 4 things companies need to do to avoid true AI integration “bumping against walls”

• The CEO of General Catalyst highlights the complexity of achieving true AI transformation.

• He said AI integration requires data infrastructure, business-specific models and leadership.

• Major investments in general catalysts include Airbnb, Windsurf and Mistral AI.

According to Chataly Stalyst’s CEO, True AI integration has four non-commodity.

“When you think about using AI to transform your business, you actually have to do four things right,” Hemant Taneja said in a 20VC podcast released on Monday.

It is “very, very difficult” to implement all four things and ensure that AI adoption is more than just prototypes for OpenAI or human models, Taneja said.

He added: “That’s why these things hit the wall.”

Venture capital firms say companies need to prepare their data infrastructure first to adopt AI. The data infrastructure includes components such as servers, databases, cloud platforms and network devices to make data secure and available.

The second thing you have to use is to understand your business’s large language model.

“You have to train these models in the context of secret seasonings and business,” he said.

Next, companies need to consider the workforce shift, as humans and AI will work together.

“Some people will manage AI agents. Some AI agents will manage humans,” he said. “Imagine how organizational charts have to change.”

“Fourth, in order to make all of this work, you actually need courage. The CEO needs to really fall behind it to drive it.”

General Catalyst’s major investments include Airbnb, Windsurf and Mistral AI, among others. The company did not respond to requests from insiders for comment.

Taneja joins a range of technology and business executives who talk about the importance of leaders’ deep involvement in AI.

VC and former Cisco CEO John Chambers said in a podcast in May that most leaders have not reinvented themselves.

“As a leader in AI, you have to reinvent yourself every year,” he said.

This is because AI moves “five times faster” on the “internet” way and provides “three times the result,” Chambers said.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, who regularly talks about how AI agents and humans will work together in the future, says he uses AI as a counselor every day.

“In an area that I’m pretty strange about, I might say, ‘First explain to me, like when I was 12, and then work hard to get into my PhD as time goes by.”