TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for length)

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Kate: Lulu, you have a powerful framework for where we are with AI in this moment, and what it could mean for women. Could you share that for our Meraki audience?

Lulu: We are at a truly historic moment. It has the potential to mark the beginning of great good—or great destruction. We need to make sure that, with women at the table, AI becomes a powerful force for good.

If we harness it well, AI can make our lives better, healthier, more equitable, and more successful. Bringing women into any situation improves the chances of success. Women often bring a collaborative spirit, a positive orientation, and a capacity to work together—qualities the world needs more of right now.

Stephanie: At Meraki, we’ve been talking not only about humanizing AI, but also considering it through a women’s lens. How do you think models can be trained to work specifically and meaningfully with women?

Lulu: I think the models are already beginning to do that in quite sophisticated ways. They can be trained to work with women, with older adults, with children—we’re already seeing that in healthcare and marketing.

But the real issue is authenticity. I’ve seen AI products supposedly targeted at children, for example, that don’t feel authentic at all. And women, like children, are often very good at spotting something that feels manipulative or performative—something trying to separate us from our dollars without genuinely understanding us.

That’s why women need to be involved in shaping these systems. Women are a vast part of the consumer base, the savings base, and increasingly the asset base. As we outlive men and earn our own incomes, our economic influence continues to grow. So engaging women is good business. But it’s also the right thing to do from a human standpoint.

Women tend to think in terms of win-wins rather than zero-sum outcomes. That matters. Society needs to think holistically about what is good for the world—not just for one country, one society, or one gender. Women can help, moving AI forward in a way that is collectively beneficial.

Stephanie: I love that framing—the idea of dignity as a win-win. So much of what you’re describing resonates with how we think about dignity: honoring people and creating conditions where everyone benefits.

Kate: Building on that, how do we actually move AI into a future that better serves women and other overlooked groups? Is it about getting more women into engineering? Is it something broader?

Lulu: There are many ways to do it, but one thing I believe strongly is that we need to focus on solutions rather than spending too much energy mourning what’s been lost.

One practical way is to create programs with broad support—and that means showing positive return on investment. If we can build initiatives that demonstrate real value, we can win support across political and social differences. Success matters to everyone.

Women often bring an instinct toward problem-solving and collaboration. They know how to bring people together instead of wasting energy on adversarial behavior.

I saw this on Wall Street all the time. It was a dog-eat-dog world. As a woman, if you were successful, you often ended up managing men who didn’t like working for a younger woman—especially if you were smarter than they were. My approach was never to make them feel threatened. I would say: here is the team objective, and here is the important role you can play because of your talents. Let’s succeed together.

That approach worked. It turned potential adversaries into allies. It made work more productive and much more enjoyable. And that same principle applies broadly: if you can find the outcome where everyone does better, you create more durable success.

Stephanie: That sparks a question about power. How should women think about power in this moment—and how can power be shifted, collectively, to create more equity and dignity in this new world?

Lulu: Power can be defined in many ways, but for me, power is the power to do good.

If we can persuade others to think of power as a responsibility to do good, then we change the whole conversation—why we seek power, how we use it, and how we hold it.

That shift matters especially in male-dominated fields that have historically been reluctant to share power. If you can show that bringing women and diverse voices into the power base actually benefits the business, people begin to listen.

Take private equity, for example. It has long been one of the hardest arenas for women to enter. I’ve often advised firms: if you have smart women on your team, don’t keep them in the back office. Bring them forward. Very often, they are exceptionally good at building the kind of trust and relationship that keeps clients confident and engaged.

I’ve seen clients or portfolio companies begin to doubt whether a firm really has their best interests at heart. Then they meet one of the women on the team—someone highly competent, but also empathetic—and suddenly they feel this is the right home for them and for their company. That strengthens the relationship and improves the outcome.

The same principle applies in asset management. I sit on several investment committees, and while I never tell managers whom to hire, I do remind them that institutions like universities and museums value inclusion because it leads to better results. When you tie inclusion to real performance and better returns, people begin to get it.

Doing the right thing often leads to better outcomes. That’s what good uses of power can accomplish.

Stephanie: On a practical note, many of our listeners would love to know: which large language models do you tend to use yourself?

Lulu: I should clarify that I’m not a technologist. I’m a consumer of these tools, and I like to be in conversation with high-tech people because I know I’m not the one designing the models.

I use ChatGPT and some of the later models, and I find them extremely useful and efficient. I also know they can be flawed. For me, the value is speed. Instead of calling two or three experts on Wall Street to ask about a stock or an industry, I can pull up information quickly and ask for the short form. Then I make my own decisions.

If something doesn’t sound right, I dismiss it and keep going. I don’t rely on AI to do my thinking for me. I use it to gather information.

That’s why I don’t believe humans will become obsolete. The truly valuable part remains human judgment—critical thinking, creativity, and the ability to connect dots in new ways.

I always tell young people: don’t simply label something good or bad. Ask instead, how could this be improved? Everyone can see the dots. The real difference lies in how you connect them, sequence them, and imagine something better. That human element will always distinguish great performers from mediocre ones.

This is where a strong liberal arts education matters so much. The ability to think across disciplines, across time, and beyond established categories will become even more valuable in an AI-driven world. More and more senior leaders are saying: we know the box now. What we need are young people who can tell us what is wrong with the box and how to make it better.

Kate: That brings us to a deeper concern. Most AI has been trained largely by men. Given your emphasis on win-win thinking, do you find that current AI supports that? Or are we at risk of losing something important by not having more women shaping these systems?

Lulu: The best AI models are built not only on algorithms, but at the intersection of algorithms and human interpretation. They need psychological insight, evaluative judgment, historical context, and future-oriented thinking. All of those elements make a model more effective.

If AI is limited only to linear, left-brain thinking, then the models will be hollow. Women bring something critically important here. Qualitative thinking matters alongside quantitative analysis. The richness of nonlinear thought matters.

I’ve long encouraged women to go into investing for exactly this reason. The edge in investing often comes from thinking beyond what is literally in front of you—from seeing what others miss. The same is true in AI, in marketing, in policy, even in statecraft.

Some of the top women in AI are already talking about integrating algorithms with behavioral science. Many come from neuroscience, social science, business, or engineering. It is at the intersection of disciplines that the richest and most successful models will emerge.

Kate: So if we can bring more nonlinear thinking into our large language models—more of the style of thinking we often associate with women—we all benefit.

Lulu: Exactly. That is very important.

Stephanie: Lulu, we’d love to close with one final question. At Meraki, we often talk about immersing yourself fully into something—with creativity, soul, and love. What brings you Meraki in your own life and work?

Lulu: I was recently talking with my dear friend and classmate Diana Chapman Walsh, and we were reflecting on entering a new decade of life. We asked ourselves: what do we want now?

I told her that I have lived so much of my life at hyperspeed. And now, in this last third of my life, I want to “repot” myself—using a gardener’s term, because I am a gardener.

Instead of being a lawn, I want to be a beautiful plant in a much smaller pot, but a much deeper one. I want to take the time to go back and savor the things I have raced through. I want to think deeply about them and focus on what is most meaningful—for myself, for my loved ones, and perhaps for the greater good.

Stephanie: That brings me such joy. Thank you, Lulu. On behalf of all of us, thank you for such a generous and inspiring conversation.

Lulu: Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

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