Women in AI Closes Out New York Tech Week
More than 600 founders, operators, and investors gathered at the Chief Clubhouse for one of the biggest Women in AI event of the season.
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Women in AI, launched by InstaLILY in 2024, has become the largest operator-led community for women building and deploying the next generation of AI: more than 2,500 leaders across New York and San Francisco, with flagship events at the NYSE during NY Tech Week and SF Tech Week, and past speakers from Google DeepMind, Salesforce, Meta, Wayfair, and beyond.
On Friday, June 5, we closed out New York Tech Week with our biggest gathering of the season: over 600 women registered, at the Chief Clubhouse in NYC, in partnership with Wilson Sonsini.
Moderated by Sasha Newman-Oktan, Chief of Staff at InstaLILY, the panel spanned the entire value chain of AI: from founding engineer to venture investor to industrial CEO:
- Iris Cheng — Founding Software Engineer, InstaLILY
- Megan Baier — Partner, Wilson Sonsini
- Crissy Costa Behrens — Managing Director, Insight Partners
- Susan Scutt — Managing Director, Vannin Chief of Staff
- Sarah Shannon Calfee — CEO, Copper State Bolt & Nut
The question Sasha put to the panel: what differentiates the companies getting real value from AI? Everyone kept circling the same answer: the technology is becoming a commodity, and the real edge is everything built around it: the team, the judgment, the trust. As Megan Baier put it, human decision-making is getting scarcer and more valuable as automation speeds up, and most AI projects fail not on the technology but on execution and change management. The companies winning AI deployments are the ones governing it with a judgment layer.
To our panelists and to Wilson Sonsini: thank you for the thoughtful conversations, and for giving this community so much to take home.
