Making AI Accessible

Karla Congson is the CEO and founder of Agentiiv, an agentic AI platform serving enterprise companies including TMX, the Vector Institute, and Sunwing. With over 100 agents deployed across industries—from nuclear facilities to stock exchanges—Karla has built her company on a foundation of practical problem-solving rather than technological spectacle. Her approach to AI and agent-building centers on what she calls “mundane utility”: innovation that feels less like magic and more like a trusted teammate integrated into daily workflows.

In this interview, Karla shares how constraint breeds creativity, why psychological safety drives adoption, and how staying close to the human experience is keeping Agentiiv at the forefront of enterprise AI.

1. What does innovation mean to you?

Innovation is at the heart of our company. To me, innovation means making the impossible accessible. It’s about the practical use and implementation of technology—building what’s truly useful. Even the most mundane utility can unlock something extraordinary in the right hands.

2. How does your team generate new ideas?

Our team focuses on the intersection of possibilities and pain points. We always start with a human problem first. Our best ideas come from listening to our clients and understanding their challenges. I spend a lot of time with them, learning about their workflows and issues. We work backward from those insights to design innovations that solve for their frustrations and enable their teams to work more effectively.

3. Do you have any specific rituals for resetting your team to be creative?

We regularly run what we call “constraint challenges.” It’s a simple but powerful practice where we intentionally limit ourselves then try to find solutions within those constraints. For example, when building agents, we might ask, “What if this agent could only ask three questions?” Or when solving a deeply technical issue, we’ll ask, “How would we design this for someone completely non-technical?” These constraints push us to think differently—and the creativity that comes out of them is extraordinary.

4. How are you leveraging AI in your innovation process? What are some unexpected benefits or challenges you've encountered with AI adoption?

AI is at the core of everything we do. We build AI agents for clients, and we also use AI internally to accelerate our own processes. For AI is at the core of everything we do. We build AI agents for clients, and we also use AI internally to accelerate our own processes. For example, we use AI to review client feedback, identify patterns across hundreds of support tickets, and inform solution design.

Interestingly, AI has made our work more human. It handles deep analysis and repetitive tasks, freeing our team to focus on nuance, creativity, and strategy.

The biggest challenge is helping people understand that AI isn’t magic—it’s a tool that amplifies human judgment rather than replacing it. There’s a lot of “AI washing” happening right now, where automation is mislabeled as AI. The truth is, AI has existed since the 1950s; what’s changing now is accessibility and integration.

Many enterprises spend millions on AI activations and see only 20% usage. Even at 50%, most users are still scratching the surface—using AI to summarize emails instead of transforming workflows. That’s a massive missed opportunity.

5. How do you identify trends? What resources does your team use to spot trends and consumer insights?

We identify trends through boardrooms, not social feeds. We learn from conversations with clients—how they’re using AI and where they’re not. I chair two AI committees and regularly speak with executives and boards, which gives me direct insight into adoption barriers and behavioral shifts.

Our strategic partnership with the Vector Institute, a globally-renowned AI research institute in Toronto, also keeps us close to cutting-edge research while ensuring our solutions stay grounded in human application.

6. Has there ever been an instance where another industry has influenced an innovation at Agentiiv?

Absolutely. Because we serve such a wide range of industries we constantly cross-pollinate ideas.

For instance, we were working with the marketing team of a large financial institution when the procurement department approached us to build procurement agents. That collaboration evolved into a full suite of risk and operations agents, transforming our overall offerings in the operational space.

7. What makes an innovative culture? How do you create a culture of innovation?

A culture of innovation starts with safety. Many people fear AI because they worry it might automate them out of a job. When people feel unsafe, they won’t innovate. Psychological safety is everything—people create their best work when they’re not fearful.

At Agentiiv, we celebrate what we call “intelligent failures”—where we try something, it doesn’t work, but we learn something extraordinary through the process.

Diversity also fuels our innovation. Our team spans ages 17 to 62, across genders and geographies—from Canada to Copenhagen. This diversity of perspective drives creative problem-solving and helps us see human challenges from every angle.

8. Looking to the future, how will Agentiiv continue to be a leader in innovation?

We’ll continue leading by staying close to the human experience. Our focus is understanding how people work and designing AI that enhances that work. We’re laser-focused on “mundane utility”—putting innovation directly in users’ hands to solve real-world problems.

This makes AI feel less like magic and more like a reliable partner—an integrated teammate within daily workflows.

To advance this mission, we’ve joined the Vector Institute’s FastLane program, and we’re building the next generation of multi-workflow agents. The future isn’t about AI that dazzles—it’s about AI that works seamlessly alongside people.