Retool is a low-code platform that enables enterprises to build internal software using AI. Backed by investors including Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator, the company has been on a high growth trajectory. With the introduction of AI Agents, Retool formally positioned itself as an AI-first company and introduced a new category it calls “enterprise AppGen.”
The launch was reviewed positively by AI industry insiders and received with strong adoption, including by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Databricks, and Amazon Web Services. Industry observers noted that the product addresses a critical gap in enterprise AI: moving beyond experimentation and into real-world, production use cases.
Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, artificial intelligence has seen a surge of new products and tools. However, analysts say that enterprise AI adoption has become an area of focus in Silicon Valley, as AI continues to evolve beyond research labs and consumer chatbots. While many organizations have experimented with AI agents, deploying them with proper governance and reliability has remained a challenge.
Retool’s AI Agents aim to solve this problem by allowing companies to embed AI directly into their workflows and internal systems, with tools for management, security, and deployment. According to analysts, this has not been done at scale before. Grand View Research estimates the enterprise AI market was worth $30 billion in 2025 and projects it will grow to $155 billion by 2030.
El Sewedy spearheaded the launch, serving as the program manager. He led a complex, six-month effort that required close coordination across product, engineering, marketing, and sales. His role involved aligning technical and non-technical teams, creating an operating model, and ensuring the launch stayed on track. “The AI Agents launch was the biggest thing we’d done as a company since our founding,” El Sewedy stated. “It took serious coordination across the entire organization, but it was incredibly rewarding for the whole team. Seeing customers building Agents for all sorts of applications, including investing, sales, and logistics, has made it all worth it.”
While Retool does not publicly disclose usage metrics, early adopters cited the platform’s flexibility as a factor in their decision to deploy the product.
El Sewedy described the launch experience as one of the most significant challenges of his career. “Through this process, we defined the blueprint for launches of this scale,” he said, noting that the framework is expected to benefit future product releases at the company and anticipates applications in the broader industry as well.
Following Retool’s launch, several other tooling vendors have introduced products with agentic capabilities. El Sewedy believes the enterprise AI industry is moving toward “consumer-grade user experiences with enterprise-grade security and governance,” a shift that could redefine enterprise software if adoption continues. Whether this trend translates into practice will depend on LLM providers continuing to deploy more advanced models and sustained adoption by enterprises, analysts predict.
“Karim set the gold standard at Retool,” said Aashish Jain, a former coworker at Retool and the Founder of Sample Healthcare. “He’s defined operational excellence in so many ways, so I’m not surprised at all by this achievement.”
El Sewedy has spent the past three and a half years at Retool, where he has also led the introduction of the company’s Agency and Templates programs. He joined from McKinsey & Company, and during his tenure, helped Retool scale from an early-stage startup to a $3.2B valuation in five years. Notably, the company counts OpenAI, NVIDIA, Amazon, and Pinterest among its customers.
El Sewedy’s work reflects a broader trend of Egyptian professionals playing increasingly prominent roles in the global AI ecosystem. While much of this involvement has been through technical development, his role is an example of an Egyptian operator with commercialization and execution contributions. In 2025, Egypt launched its National AI Strategy, aiming to train 30,000 AI specialists and support 250 AI-driven companies by 2030. Together, these developments point to a rising focus of AI in Egypt, driven by both delivering new AI systems abroad and shaping AI policy at home.
Egypt currently ranks first in Africa and 51st globally in government AI readiness. The country is also set to host the inaugural AI Everything Middle East & Africa (MEA) Summit, signaling its goal of shaping AI adoption and investment in the region and globally.
Today, El Sewedy is leading growth initiatives for Retool’s new product, Assist, while continuing to help shape the company’s enterprise AppGen platform and its go-to-maket programs. He says his focus remains on bringing operational rigor and a growth mindset to Retool’s expanding AI efforts.
Short link: