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Ariel Cohen

Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the Board, Navan, Inc.

Search every verified Ariel Cohen interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Ariel Cohen, CEO and co-founder of Navan, has been discussing the company's AI-driven approach to corporate travel and expense management at recent industry events. In July 2026, he appeared on the Brew Markets Daily podcast and at the RAISE Summit in Paris, where he described Navan's growth, including a 50% year-over-year increase in gross booking volume and 40% revenue growth, and stated that the company had become profitable and cash flow positive. He also discussed Navan's gross margins, which he said exceed 72%, and claimed that the company saves clients an average of 15% on their travel budgets by rewarding employees who book below company spending limits with personal travel credits. Cohen has positioned Navan as a disruptor to legacy corporate travel providers, referring to competitors such as Concur, American Express, and CWT as "dinosaurs" that have failed to innovate. He has emphasized the importance of in-person connections as Navan's core mission, saying the company was built around empowering face-to-face interaction rather than merely booking flights. At the RAISE Summit, he discussed the role of AI agents in handling complex travel logistics, while also expressing optimism about human interaction, stating he is"bullish on humans" even as an AI company. He also stressed the responsibility of the tech industry to consider how work will evolve for people not participating in the current AI-driven economy.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“It's so interesting because if you think how Gen AI was introduced, it was introduced through an application JPT and I actually think that if OpenAI would have come and said we have some APIs that you can use and at the end there is some GPU we wouldn't sit here. So it actually started with a killer application which HBT and now it kind of went very deep to the infrastructure and every everybody are obsessed about me”

“We saved in average for companies 15% a on their entire travel budget. So, it actually means that if you spend $100 million a year on travel, we are saving you $15 million. It's a lot of money.”

“We are really disrupting the old model. So, we're really disrupting these dinosaurs like Concur, American Express, CWT, all of these names. And they're irrelevant. You know, they didn't innovate for very, very, very long time. They're giving a product that nobody likes.”

“We're really disrupting these dinosaurs like Concur, American Express, CWT, all of these names. And they're irrelevant. You know, they didn't innovate for very, very, very long time. They're giving a product that nobody likes. Usually, if we do that, somebody will will disrupt you.”

“We save in average for companies 15% on their entire travel budget. So, it actually means that if you spend $100 million a year on travel, we are saving you $15 million. It's a lot of money. But the way that we do it, we actually not having like these strict policies and all of these things. If you're willing to book below the company's budget, what the company was telling you to do, we're actually rewarding you pers”

“Yeah, we grew last quarter by 50% in terms of usage. We grew our revenue by 40%, we became cash flow positive, became profitable. So our kind of stats are amazing. But the most important thing, we have more and more users using us. We have more than 10 billion dollars of bookings a year now. Going really, really fast. So more people are joining this uh kind of nan thing.”

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