Building the AI Flower Framework as the Roadmap for AI Transformation with Juliette van der Laarse

Juliette is the creator of the AI Flower Framework and founder of the AI Flower Foundation. She spent a year mapping how AI could impact her job as an engineering manager, and discovered why so many AI pilots don’t scale. She turned what she found into an open-source AI framework that maps 152 IT activities against 25 levels of AI capability to show what evolves, fossilizes, or stays human work. Whether you’re a founder, engineering leader, or a woman in tech looking for a concrete way to find out whether AI is actually the right solution to your problem, this episode will give you the three questions you need to ask before you start. What you'll learn in this episode: Why most AI pilots stall before they ever scale Why "ten percent wrong" becomes "one hundred percent wrong" once AI touches it The three questions to ask before reaching for AI: AI, automation, or a system fix How 152 IT activities map against 25 levels of AI capability Why she kept the framework open source instead of charging for it What her own redundancy taught her about staying in control of her career Her one safeguard for any AI tool that recommends or matches people Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Juliette van der Laarse and the AI Flower framework 05:19 From childhood programming to AI research and corporate engineering leadership 08:17 Why Juliette started the framework: clarity, career impact, and AI transformation 10:05 Why pilot-first AI strategies often stall at the business case stage 13:35 Why pilots are useful but not enough for enterprise-wide change 16:35 How the framework addresses fear, trust, and job stability 19:11 Juliette's redundancy experience and what it taught her about career resilience 27:33 Will AI take all jobs, and what has to happen before that becomes realistic 29:51 System readiness, regulation, and why some work may stay human 32:06 AI overhype versus useful automation 33:50 Why shallow IT training can lead teams to overuse AI 36:57 How mentoring and senior coaching could scale knowledge better 41:10 The structure of the AI Flower: activities, standards, and excellence 48:02 AI capability as 25 levels of maturity and scope 51:49 Mapping AI capability to IT activities and fossilization of tasks 54:57 How the model shows role evolution across DevOps, test, and infrastructure work 59:27 Capturing undocumented knowledge and local context in companies 1:03:06 Building internal knowledge gathering and documentation workflows with AI 1:09:21 Peer review, critique, and building a board of naysayers 1:15:46 How the framework changes over time while keeping a stable structure 1:18:41 Why the framework is open source instead of monetized 1:25:40 Using the model to map AI risk and suggest controls 1:30:06 Where companies should start, and the biggest mistake to avoid 1:35:23 Why Juliette is setting up a foundation around the framework 1:37:35 Safeguards for an AI funding coach and avoiding self-reinforcing bias 1:41:15 Where to follow Juliette as the foundation and framework grow Show notes: Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/09/10/episode-169/ Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-169?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true Connect with Juliette van der Laarse and the AI Flower Foundation Juliette: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliettevanderlaarse/ AI Flower Foundation: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ai-flower-foundation/ Connect with host Dirkjan Hupkes LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/ FundingCoach website: https://fundingcoach.ai Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/ About Women Disrupting Tech Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed. 🎧 Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music. 👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of tech.