How to Build an AI-First Culture with 1,300 People. Real Story.

The Bold Experiment That Changed Everything What if your company of over a thousand employees and hundreds of company clients stopped chasing quarterly goals for an entire month and instead invested in making every single employee an AI builder? That's exactly what AppsFlyer did, and the results reveal a fundamentally different approach to AI transformation that most companies are missing. In a recent conversation on the Deconstructor of Fun podcast, Barak Witkowsky, Chief Product Officer of AppsFlyer, shared how the 1,300-person company took an unprecedented step: they paused regular business objectives and put everyone through a four-week AI builder course.

Not as something extra on top of their work, but as the work itself. Listen to our full conversation with Barak Witkowski, CPO of AppsFlyer, and hear how going AI native has transformed the company. "We're pretty much all in on AI," Barak explained.

" The Problem with Traditional AI Adoption Most companies approach AI transformation with a top-down mandate. Leadership sets KPIs, defines processes, instructs their teams to "hire less and employ more AI” and expects teams to figure it out. The problem?

" Talk to executives at major companies, and they're bullish on AI. " But talk to directors, managers, and individual contributors, the people who actually execute, and you'll find something very different: uncertainty, uneasiness, and often a quiet dread that they're about to become obsolete. "Everyone has some imposter syndrome, thinking all others are working so great with AI and not me," Barak noted.

This creates a paradox where everyone is simultaneously pushing for AI adoption while feeling inadequate about their own progress. AppsFlyer's Dual Approach: Top-Down Meets Bottom-Up What makes AppsFlyer's transformation remarkable is how they combined strategic direction with grassroots innovation. Yes, they set KPIs and defined processes that must become AI-driven (they call these "ATOMs").

But the secret sauce was democratizing AI knowledge across the entire organization. The company ran hackathons, recognized champions, and most importantly, completely freed people's time to innovate with AI. " Think about that.

The CPO of a major tech company doesn't rely primarily on external consultants, conferences, or vendor pitches. His best insights come from his own team, who today tend to know more about AI tools than developers at other companies. This investment came directly from CEO Oren Kaniel two years ago.

"When he first talked about it, I felt like he's almost too much all in," Barak admitted. "  From Attribution Platform to Modern Marketing Cloud AppsFlyer's AI transformation wasn't just internal. The company simultaneously evolved its product from an attribution platform into what they call a "modern marketing cloud," launching a suite of AI agents designed to automate marketing workflows.