WOMEN x AI
WOMEN x AI (WxAI)
Recent Episodes
How AI is reshaping product management from idea to launch? The panel digs into strategy, PRDs, research, prototyping, analytics, guardrails, and the human judgment that still holds it all together.
“AI gives you what you give it. It can enhance your voice, but it cannot replace your thinking or your voice.” — Namisha Balagopal
Guests
Namisha Balagopal — Product leader across HP, Twitch, Amazon, and digital health
Mayan Shay May-Raz — Principal Product Manager, Amazon Search, former AR and VR PM at Lenovo and Meta startup
Dr. Nancy Li — Founder, PM Accelerator, YouTube and LinkedIn Top Voice
Jasmeen Bal — Product leader in the EV charging industry, former automotive engineering
Hosts
Reut Lazo, Cofounder and Co-CEO, WOMEN x AI
Jenny Kay Pollock, Cofounder and Co-CEO, WOMEN x AI
What We Cover
- How AI speeds strategy, PRDs, and stakeholder buy-in
- Research at scale with interview synthesis and insight mapping
- Prototyping and UI flows with AI design helpers
- Data quality, cleansing, and why your inputs determine your outputs
- Hallucinations, bias, and practical guardrails in production
- The evolving PM role, specialization, and parallelized build cycles
- Blending AI insight with human empathy and product taste
Key Takeaways
- AI is a force multiplier for PMs who stay in the loop and think critically.
- Inputs matter. Define personas, context, and goals to get useful outputs.
- Use AI to compress time, then spend the saved time on deeper questions.
- Guardrails require humans. Validate facts, monitor outputs, and design for failure cases.
- Clean data beats big data. Aggregate, de-dupe, and cleanse before you trust.
- The PM toolkit is changing, but storytelling and empathy still win rooms.
- Product orgs will specialize. Core feature PMs, growth PMs, and internal tooling PMs can move faster with AI.
- Parallelize more. Strategy, research, prototype, and QA can run together with AI assistance.
Tools Mentioned
Dovetail — Customer interviews, synthesis, and insights
Lovable — Prompt to clickable prototype for faster stakeholder alignment
Claude — Reasoned writing, persona-aware drafting, and analysis
Amplitude — Product analytics and auto-captured events for faster decisions
Fathom — Meeting records, notes, and action items
Also referenced: Miro AI, Figma, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Google Vertex AI, RAG and multi-agent patterns
Resources and Recs
Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks, on storytelling that lands with stakeholders
On Purpose with Jay Shetty — Madonna interview on resilience and belief
Power and Prediction by Agrawal, Gans, and Goldfarb, on how AI shifts decision making
Chapters
00:00 Intro and why AI in product matters now
01:09 Guest intros
05:06 How AI changes PM work and team velocity
08:44 First moments when AI changed their product practice
14:36 Strategy, speed, and decision making with AI
15:13 Research at scale and the Dovetail workflow
16:53 Blending AI insight with human intuition
20:21 Designing an AI-native product process end to end
23:29 Specialization and faster iterations across the lifecycle
24:40 Parallelizing strategy, prototyping, research, and QA
26:32 Risks and challenges, overreliance, and “vanilla” docs
28:01 Hallucinations and practical guardrails in production
33:39 Tool favorites of the week
37:40 Non-AI recommendations and why empathy still matters
41:02 How WOMEN x AI helps members grow
43:07 Closing and final quote
Recorded for the WOMEN x AI community. Learn more and join at www.womenxai.com.
In this episode we discuss the transformative impact of AI on sales processes and customer interactions.
Special Guests:
- Saumya Bhatnagar – CPO & Co-Founder of Involve.ai, building Jeeva, an agentic sales automation platform; recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in AI
- Summer Poletti – Fractional CRO, Founder of Rise of Us, and Host of the Revenue Remix podcast
- Amirah Raveneau-Bey – Founder of Grow, Scale, Develop; Fractional Advisor, Executive Coach, and Speaker with 25+ years in FinTech, real estate, and startups
Host: Jenny Kay Pollock Cofounder & Co-CEO WxAI
We explore how AI is reshaping the sales landscape, enhancing human connections, and automating time-consuming tasks. The conversation highlights the importance of integrating AI tools into sales strategies while maintaining a human touch and understanding customer journeys.
The guests share insights on the future of sales, the role of automation, and the necessary guardrails for using AI responsibly
Takeaways
- AI is a competitive necessity in sales.
- Human relationships remain fundamental in sales, even with AI.
- AI helps sales reps prepare better for meetings.
- Automation allows sales reps to focus on building connections.
- AI can enhance the customer journey by providing insights.
- Sales reps can leverage AI to ask better questions.
- AI tools can help shorten the sales cycle.
- Recording calls can provide valuable insights for sales reps.
- AI should be used with caution due to potential inaccuracies.
- Understanding customer journeys is crucial for effective sales.
Resources & Mentions
🤖 AI Tools & Platforms
Fathom – AI-powered meeting notes and call summaries
Otter – Transcription and AI notetaking for calls and meetings
Granola – AI meeting assistant Jenny used during the recording
Riverside – Podcast recording platform with AI-generated show notes
Jeeva.ai – Agentic sales automation platform co-founded by Saumya
Cast Magic – AI tool for turning call recordings into notes, emails, and follow-ups
Cloud Desktops MCP – Secure desktop solution for hosting custom GPTs (mentioned by Summer)
Andi – AI-powered search and workflows (Amirah referenced for sales templates)
- Cursor – AI coding assistant with ChatGPT-5 integration
📚 Newsletters, Podcasts, & Learning Resources
WOMEN x AI (WxAI) Social Saturday – Weekly conversations and learning with the WxAI community
AI Daily Brief – Short daily podcast with the latest in AI
Superhuman Newsletter – AI and productivity insights
Women in AI LinkedIn – Updates and thought leadership from the global community
TLDR Newsletter – Daily tech and AI digest
- Lenny’s Newsletter – Product and growth strategy insights
- Journal.io – App that turns AI research papers into audio summaries
🌟 Non-AI Recommendations
Summer Poletti's White Chili – sSeasonal favorite (vegetarian, vegan, or with meat) (link TBD)
Libby App – Free audiobook app from your local library
Love is Blind (Netflix) – Reality TV show
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to AI and Sales
04:03 The Importance of AI in Sales
09:47 AI's Impact on Sales Processes
16:33 Automation in Sales
23:16 Guardrails and Limitations of AI
29:56 Customer Journey and AI
34:28 Lightning Round and Community Engagement
This conversation explores the multifaceted world of data and AI, focusing on the importance of data analysis, ownership, and ethical considerations.
Special Guests:
- Annie Xu - Works at Google Cloud, focusing on customers building LLM foundation models
- Kasia Rachuta - Works at Block, within the identity verification space at Square
- Rachel Mak-McCully - Works at Unlearn, a startup in health AI
Hosts: Reut Lazo & Jenny Kay Pollock Cofounder & Co-CEOs WxAI
The speakers discuss their journeys into tech, the challenges of data collection, especially in healthcare, and the biases present in AI models. They emphasize the need for collaboration across various data roles and the significance of human feedback in AI development. The conversation also highlights the role of women in tech and the importance of community support in navigating these challenges.
Takeaways
- Data analysis is crucial for making informed decisions.
- Collaboration among data roles enhances the effectiveness of data usage.
- Healthcare data collection faces unique challenges due to fragmentation.
- Bias in AI models can stem from skewed training data.
- Human feedback is essential in refining AI models.
- Ethical considerations in data collection are increasingly important.
- Women are underrepresented in technical data roles.
- Community support can foster connections and opportunities in tech.
- Diversity in data committees can help address biases.
- Understanding data ownership is vital for ethical practices.
- Navigating the Data Landscape: Insights from Women in Tech
- The Power of Data: Ownership, Ethics, and
Resources
Weapons of Math Destruction - A book referenced by Rachel Mak-McCully.
Perplexity - An AI tool mentioned by Rachel Mak-McCully.
Notebook LLM - An AI tool mentioned by Annie Xu.
Goose - An AI tool mentioned by Kasia Rachuta.
Kaggle GenAI Challenge - Recommended by Kasia Rachuta for learning about GenAI.
Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Lecomf - A book recommended by Rachel Mak-McCully.
Maybe Happy Ending - A Broadway show recommended by Annie Xu.
Butter by Azako Yuzuki - A book recommended by Kasia Rachuta.
For more from our community check out www.womenxai.com
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to AI and Data
03:08 The Importance of Data in AI
05:30 Personal Journeys in Data and AI
08:29 The Role of Data in Decision Making
11:24 Ownership and Responsibility in Data
13:55 Bias and Representation in Data
16:41 Human Involvement in Data Processes
19:33 Privacy vs. Progress in Data Collection
22:05 Regulations and Their Impact on Data Practices
25:58 The Impact of Proxies in AI and Regulation
26:56 Legislation and Trust in Technology
28:42 Women in Technology: Visibility and Representation
31:41 Data Quality and Iterative Processes
34:22 AI Tools: Community Recs
36:32 Learning Resources for AI Enthusiasts
38:52 Lightning Round
42:15 Community Support
43:44 Community and Collaboration in AI Learning
This conversation explores the intersection of AI, innovation, and funding, particularly focusing on the role of women in tech and the importance of diverse teams.
Speakers:
Moderator: Holly Uber, Human Centered Technologist | Digital Health Leader | Investor & Advisor
Preetha Ram, Managing Partner, INpact Fund and CTO, Pier 70 Ventures
Sabira Alloo, Head of Private Equity Partnerships, North America, Google
Mahak Sharma, Head of Platform Partnerships, Gemini
Sheetal Inariani, General Partner & Chief Financial Officer, Global Health Impact Network & Funds
Panelists discuss trends in AI, the impact of AI on healthcare, and the dynamics of venture capital funding. They emphasize the need for responsible AI, the significance of community, and the value of cross-industry collaboration.
The discussion also covers alternative funding options, the importance of market research, and the role of intellectual property in startups.
Takeaways
- Building an inclusive future in AI requires changing the narrative on who gets funded.
- The AI hype cycle is maturing, moving towards rationalization and value assessment.
- AI in healthcare presents both opportunities and obligations for responsible innovation.
- Diverse teams lead to better outcomes in venture funding and innovation.
- Investors are looking for clear, measurable outcomes in AI startups.
- Understanding the dynamics of VC funding is crucial for founders.
- Alternative funding options exist beyond traditional VC, including grants and corporate accelerators.
- Community plays a vital role in supporting innovation and collaboration.
- Cross-industry collaboration can lead to groundbreaking innovations.
- Market research is essential to validate the problem being solved by a startup.
Sound Bites Chapters
00:00 Building an Inclusive Future in Digital Health
06:44 Trends in AI and Innovation
14:37 The Impact of the Pandemic on Healthcare
18:05 Investment Trends in Healthcare and AI
22:01 Understanding the VC and LP Dynamics
29:50 Exploring Alternative Funding Options
41:56 The Future of Innovation and Collaboration
54:19 Audience Engagement and Insights
56:31 Navigating Startup Challenges
01:00:24 Understanding VC Relationships
01:03:28 Evaluating Market Potential
01:06:48 The Role of Technical Expertise
01:10:18 Funding Strategies in Biopharma
01:14:35 Building a Unique Value Proposition
01:17:07 Evolving Metrics for Startups
01:20:38Preparing for Acquisition
01:21:40 Finding the Right Advisors
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