At the beginning of every WOMEN x AI (WxAI) event, we say the WxAI Promise together: I promise to be curious. I promise to share what I know and ask when I don’t. I promise to hand her the mic. And I’m ready to learn AI, in community. The promise helps us set an intention for the time we are about to spend together. It welcomes new members, explains the culture we are building, and reminds all of us that a strong community depends on participation. The WxAI Promise sets the

Written by Jenny Kay Pollock, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of WOMEN x AI (WxAI) and Founder of Luminizing Growth. Through her work with executives, founders, and AI practitioners, she helps organizations navigate AI-driven transformation and adoption. The Women in AI breakfast panel explored what it takes to move AI from breakthrough technology to real-world business impact. For the past few years, much of the AI conversation has centered on new models, benchmark results, and breakt

By Summer Poletti, Founder and CRO of Rise of Us, Host of Revenue Remix podcast and frequent WOMEN x AI (WxAI) speaker. "The event is the seed. Everything else is the harvest." - Summer Poletti The Room Before the Panel Started I walked into Templo Mayor Hall at San Diego State University's campus on a Saturday afternoon with my exec assistant, who everyone noticed “happens” to look exactly like me. Right down to the colorful highlights. We were, as several peop

Moha Shah shares insights on AI governance, responsible AI adoption, and board oversight for business leaders.

Written by Jenny Kay Pollock, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of WOMEN x AI (WxAI) and Founder of Luminizing Growth. Through her work with executives, founders, and AI practitioners, she helps organizations navigate AI-driven transformation and adoption. The best part of every event is reconnecting with longtime community members and welcoming new faces into the WOMEN x AI ecosystem. The hype surrounding AI right now is palpable. Walking the floor of Snowflake Summit 2026 Dev Day, you

Artificial intelligence moves faster in private companies. Growth-stage businesses experiment quickly. Portfolio companies deploy AI into products before formal governance structures are fully built. Operational pressure and competitive dynamics accelerate adoption. That speed creates opportunity. It also creates governance exposure. AI governance for private equity boards and growth-stage directors requires a different lens than traditional public company oversight. The time

AI governance failures rarely begin with a crisis. They begin with small signals that oversight is misaligned with exposure. Boards that recognize early AI governance red flags can correct course before risk escalates. Boards looking to structure oversight more systematically can explore our AI Governance for Boards framework, which introduces the Board Director’s AI Governance Compass. Boards that ignore them often discover gaps under pressure. 1. AI Is Discussed as Innovat

Artificial intelligence introduces a different category of enterprise risk. Boards that treat AI as a technology upgrade miss the governance implication. AI systems can influence pricing, hiring, underwriting, product recommendations, capital allocation, and customer eligibility decisions. In some cases, those decisions are probabilistic, data-dependent, and non-deterministic. That changes the risk profile. Many boards receive AI updates as innovation briefings. Few receive t

Artificial intelligence is reshaping enterprise strategy, risk exposure, and operational systems. As a result, boards are increasingly responsible for structured AI governance oversight. Boards do not need to understand model architecture. They do need to ask better governance questions. The quality of AI oversight is often determined not by technical depth, but by the discipline of inquiry. These AI governance questions for boards are grounded in fiduciary responsibility and

Artificial intelligence discussions often blur the line between AI governance and AI ethics. For boards of directors, that distinction is not semantic. It is structural. AI ethics defines principles. AI governance defines accountability. Understanding the difference between AI governance and AI ethics is essential for directors who carry fiduciary responsibility. What Is AI Ethics? AI ethics refers to the principles that guide how artificial intelligence should be designed an

As artificial intelligence reshapes enterprise risk and strategy, boards face a practical governance question: Which committee oversees AI? AI and board committees are now directly connected. Oversight cannot remain informal, and responsibility cannot remain ambiguous. If AI influences enterprise value, committee ownership must be defined. Why Committee Placement Matters Board committees are not administrative structures. They are accountability mechanisms. Committee placemen

Board directors, executives, and governance-focused leaders gathered to explore AI oversight, risk, and board readiness using the AI Board Governance Compass. On March 19, 2025, WOMEN x AI partnered with the Silicon Valley AI Hub to host AI Board Governance in Practice, an interactive workshop focused on one of the most pressing questions facing boards today: How prepared are we to govern AI? As organizations accelerate AI adoption, boards are increasingly being asked to prov

Author: Pooja Kashyap is a technology enthusiast and Conversational AI Evangelist at Conversive AI , operating at the intersection of academia and industry while shaping thought leadership across the messaging and AI ecosystem. She is also a marathon runner with nearly 40 races completed since 2016, bringing endurance and curiosity to both her work and life. Prompt-generated image via Gemini In 2018, Amazon quietly scrapped an AI hiring tool it had spent years building. T

Artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing strategy, operations, and enterprise risk. Yet many boards still treat AI as an occasional update rather than a recurring governance topic. If AI affects enterprise value, it belongs on the board agenda. The question is not whether AI should appear on the agenda. The question is how. Step 1: Clarify the Purpose of AI Discussions AI conversations can drift into technical detail unless the board defines its governance objectiv

Artificial intelligence is increasingly embedded inside third-party software. From CRM platforms to HR systems to cybersecurity tools, many vendors now include AI features by default. In some cases, sensitive company data is being transmitted to external models without clear visibility at the board level. For directors, this creates a governance question: How should boards oversee third-party AI exposure? This is not an operational issue. It is a governance issue. Why Third-P

Panelists Speaking on the AI Landscape in 2026 Last night WOMEN x AI hosted a conversation titled: AI Landscape in 2026: What Matters and What Doesn’t. This was not a trends panel. It was a judgment panel. The room was full of founders, investors, operators, and executives trying to answer one question: What deserves our attention now and what is noise? Here’s what we discussed: 1. AI Is Moving From Interface to Infrastructure Many leaders still treat AI like a feature. A ch

A Glossary of Common AI Terms & Concepts by Tamara Gracon , Joanna Ridgeway , Paula Fontana , Jenny Kay Pollock and Reut Lazo . Here’s a quick guide to help you stay current in the AI era. From AGI to LLM, we’ve got you covered with clear, simple definitions of the terms you’ll hear most often in today’s conversations about artificial intelligence. 📘 Download the printable version A - C Agentic AI – AI that can set and work toward goals on its own, making decisions and ada

In early October, the WOMEN x AI Titans Tools Council an expert-led roundtable of AI builders, founders, and operators came together once again to share what’s working in their real-world workflows. This quarter, our Council tested 39 battle-tested tools , spanning everything from research copilots and meeting notetakers to AI-driven recruiters and design generators. Each tool was explored through hands-on use, uncovering what accelerates progress and what still needs human j

Community, Costumes & Claude: How AI Got Spooky This Week This weekend’s #WxAISocialSaturday was equal parts spooky, strategic, and social, thanks to our host Summer Poletti (rhymes with spaghetti), a fractional revenue leader and GTM strategist known for transforming underperforming sales orgs and elevating women into revenue and executive roles. Summer brought her signature blend of AI-savvy and human-first leadership to a festive Halloween-themed session full of AI art,

Photo by Reut Lazo What does the future of law look like in an AI-powered world? That question shaped one of the most thought-provoking events of SF Tech Week. On October 7, an audience gathered at Werqwise for the Aparti.AI Salon, hosted by Anna Naidis, CPO and Co-Founder of Aparti.AI , and supported by WOMEN x AI. Reut Lazo attended and had a great time learning at the intersection of AI and legal, in community. The evening brought together legal experts, founders, and in