Kylee Lessard’s Post

I started getting excited about AI because of my husband (thnx Tyler!). He was always talking about it, sharing what he was learning...sometimes, when I wanted to talk about anything but 🙃 through that energy, I started playing with AI myself. First personally, then professionally. What surprised me was how much the personal use cases unlocked for me: trip planning, meal prep, blogging, wedding hacks. Once I was experimenting on my own, my confidence and contributions at work went way up. And yet… none of my girlfriends were talking about this. The only people I ever heard talking about AI were men. When you zoom out, that tracks. Women are still meaningfully underrepresented in AI, across who’s building, funding, and shaping it: • Women make up just ~22% of the global AI workforce • Only ~18% of AI researchers are women • Fewer than 1 in 5 AI startups have a female founder • Women represent just 28% of AI training enrollments worldwide If AI is going to fundamentally change work, wealth, and society, that gap really matters. After hearing Fei-Fei Li speak this week about who gets to shape the future of AI, this feels even more important. That’s why, since the summer, I’ve been hosting monthly Women + AI dinners in SF: just non-technical gals gathering to eat, drink, and share notes on what they’re experimenting with and learning in real time. Shout out to Brianne, Linda, Yasamin, Sophia, Lauren, Erin, Emma, Joie, & Fiona for their founding membership! I’m starting to wonder if this kind of peer-to-peer, social on-ramp could scale. Ladies, if a space like this existed more broadly, would you want to be apart of it? What would you want it to look like? And if you’re curious about joining future conversations, I dropped a sign-up link in the comments 👇 I'd love to invite you to our next event!