How eBay Is Scaling Enterprise AI Responsibly
Enterprise AI adoption is moving faster than traditional technology planning cycles can support. New tools appear constantly, technology planning cycles are shrinking, and organizations are under pressure to deliver measurable value without compromising security, reliability, or governance.
At the AI Networking Summit 2026 in Dallas, John Feldmeier, Vice President of Site Engineering and Information Technology at eBay, shared how the company is building an AI-enabled workplace while embedding governance from the beginning.
The biggest takeaway: scaling enterprise AI is not primarily about deploying more tools. It is about changing how the organization operates.
How Is eBay Using AI Across the Enterprise?
eBay is using AI to help employees find information, conduct research, improve software development, and reduce friction within existing business processes.
However, access to tools alone is not enough.
“Bringing more tools into your environment isn’t going to make you successful,” Feldmeier said. “It does take training. It takes enablement programs to really make those tools useful to your workforce.”
For enterprise leaders, this means AI adoption must be treated as a workforce transformation initiative. Employees need practical use cases, training, guidance, and support, not simply new software licenses.
How Can Companies Scale AI Without Rebuilding Everything?
Organizations often approach AI with the assumption that they need to redesign complete workflows or automate entire departments.
eBay has taken a more practical approach: add AI to specific parts of existing workflows.
AI might gather information, generate content, answer common questions, or help employees diagnose an issue. This allows companies to deliver measurable improvements without the cost, disruption, and risk of completely rebuilding a process.
Using AI within a portion of an established workflow can remove friction and accelerate work without requiring a fundamental transformation.
What Role Should Humans Play in Enterprise AI?
Human oversight remains essential, but people do not need to be involved in every routine interaction.
For example, eBay created AI agents that help developers find answers about the company’s roughly 3,000 microservices. When an agent can answer a question, the developer gets immediate support. When it cannot, the request is routed to the appropriate human team.
This human-in-the-loop model allows AI to handle many routine questions while preserving expert involvement when an agent cannot provide a satisfactory answer.
The goal is not to remove people from the process. It is to use their time where human expertise provides the most value.
How Should Enterprises Measure AI Value?
Broad productivity gains can be difficult to quantify. That is why eBay increasingly focuses on AI use cases connected to measurable workflows and business outcomes.
One example is eBay’s AI-enabled selling experience. Sellers can take two photos of an item and use AI to create the listing. According to Feldmeier, eBay saw a 50% increase in listing creation among small sellers using the app, which also achieved 95% customer satisfaction.
Strong enterprise AI metrics may include:
- Faster response and processing times
- Reduced manual work
- Fewer escalations
- Higher completion rates
- Improved customer or employee satisfaction
What Does Responsible AI Governance Look Like?
Responsible AI governance should not exist only to stop projects. It should help organizations move forward securely.
Feldmeier described the challenge as finding a way to “say yes without compromising your principles.”
That requires organizations to build security, identity controls, engineering standards, reliability, governance, and appropriate human oversight into AI initiatives from the beginning.
The companies that gain the greatest advantage from enterprise AI will not necessarily be those that adopt the most tools. They will be the ones that can experiment quickly, measure results, scale what works, and maintain trust as the technology evolves.
Watch the Full eBay AI Session
Watch Building an AI-Enabled eBay: Platforms, Partnerships, and Impact on demand to hear the complete discussion about scaling enterprise AI, enabling employees, improving workflows, and preparing for autonomous agents.
Continue the conversation at AI Networking Summit NYC, where enterprise leaders will explore the infrastructure, networking, security, and operating models required to scale AI responsibly.
