AI Queens: Smart AF AI Tools, Automation, & Business Tips with Erika Stanley

Queens, running a business can feel like living on an island. The fastest way I have found to learn AI is to get in a room with other women who are learning, building, and staying curious.

This week I'm coming to you from Austin, Texas with a short episode and a big invitation. I have a busy travel season ahead, and there are four chances this fall to learn with me, online or in person.

What we cover:

Her AI Era Summit (October 12 to 16, free and virtual): More than 35 women who are AI experts are teaching on creative work, marketing, and operations. My session shows you how to find software subscriptions you can cut because you can now build the tool yourself. The VIP upgrade includes my mini blueprint, which normally sells for $99.

She Leads AI CREATE Conference (October 16 to 18, Salt Lake City): This is my second year attending and my first year presenting. I'll also be recording episodes at the AI Queens podcast booth, so come say hi.

Women's Leadership Conference (November 19, Hickory, North Carolina): I'll be at Dr. Lauren Jarrett's speaker's table answering your in-depth AI questions.

The final AI Queens Buildathon of the year: It's free, it's virtual, and we'll build a custom app together that you can use through the holidays. The date is coming soon.

Every one of these events gives you the same thing: time around women who are building with AI. If you can't make any of them, find a group where you can build, chat, and collaborate.

Join me this fall:

Register for the Her AI Era Summit: https://links.mileenddigital.com/her-ai-era-summit-2026

Come join me at the She Leads AI CREATE Conference: https://sheleadsai.ai/create-2026/

Register for the next AI Queens Buildathon: http://aiqueens.com/build

Connect with Erika!

⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erikatheaiqueen/⁠⁠⁠

Erika's AI Consultancy: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.aiqueens.com/⁠⁠⁠

Erika's Branding & Web Agency: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.mileenddigital.com/⁠⁠⁠

Join the AI Queens Society: ⁠⁠⁠https://aiqueens.substack.com/

Queens, what would it take for your business to keep running without you in the room?

Alisha Esmail spent seven years in international development before she founded Rode Coffee, a Canadian coffee company with fully female supply chains in Costa Rica, Kenya, and Peru. Along the way, she built an AI business brain in Claude Code that holds 11 years of company knowledge. That brain gave her the freedom to step back from Rode and launch her second company, Latch AI, a client retention engine for service-based businesses.

Alisha and Erika talk about why AI only works when your systems already work, how to spot a client who is about to leave, and why human connection still matters in a business that runs on AI agents. Alisha also shares the rule her whole team follows: "My golden rule is we're never allowed to blame AI."

What we cover:

Why documenting your processes first makes building an AI brain much easier

How Alisha's team keeps a human in the loop with monthly client calls and their own CRM notes

The four client categories Latch uses: at risk, slipping, stable, and expansion ready

Why a frustrated client is less worrying than one who only says "sounds good"

Alisha's advice for women who feel they aren't technical enough to build with AI

Alisha's story shows that AI does its best work when you pair strong systems with real relationships. Write down what you know about your business, and let AI help you carry it forward.

Ready to build your own business brain? Get the Brand-to-Bot Blueprint at aiqueens.com/blueprint.

Connect with Alisha:

LinkedIn

Instagram @alishaesmail

Connect with Erika!

⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erikatheaiqueen/⁠⁠⁠

Erika's AI Consultancy: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.aiqueens.com/⁠⁠⁠

Erika's Branding & Web Agency: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.mileenddigital.com/⁠⁠⁠

Join the AI Queens Society: ⁠⁠⁠https://aiqueens.substack.com/

Rebecca Liao has been building AI companies since 2014, back when getting a computer to understand plain language was still a struggle. Today she is the co-founder and CEO of Saga AI Labs, which turns well-known characters from games, sports, and consumer brands into AI agents that talk with fans around the clock. Before Saga, she led growth at a SoftBank-backed unicorn and co-founded a crypto company that grew to about $5 billion in annual volume.

Erika sat down with Rebecca expecting to talk about video game characters. Instead, they got into who gets to tell the story of AI, why the rooms where tech gets built still feel like a boys' club, and why so many talented women settle for the number two seat when they have what it takes to lead.

What we cover:

Why Rebecca believes the scariest AI safety headlines have more to do with company valuations than real risk

How being the outsider in a room shapes your career, and how to find allies who help you build

Rebecca's challenge to women who stay in the COO seat when they have the talent to be CEO

What a character agent is and why brands use them to reach new customers

An honest back-and-forth on when an AI agent should tell you it is not a real person

The way women use AI matters, and the whole conversation gets better when more of us share what we are doing. If you have been using AI in your business without telling anyone, this is your sign to speak up, because someone a few steps behind you needs to hear how you did it.

Want AI that sounds like you and knows your business? Grab the Brand-to-Bot Blueprint at aiqueens.com/blueprint, or DM Erika on Instagram or LinkedIn and she will send it over.

Mentioned in this episode:

Brand-to-Bot Blueprint: https://aiqueens.com/blueprint

Saga AI Labs: https://saga.xyz

Connect with Rebecca Liao:https://x.com/beccaliaohttps://saga.xyz/

Connect with Erika!

⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erikatheaiqueen/⁠⁠⁠

Erika's AI Consultancy: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.aiqueens.com/⁠⁠⁠

Erika's Branding & Web Agency: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.mileenddigital.com/⁠⁠⁠

Join the AI Queens Society: ⁠⁠⁠https://aiqueens.substack.com/

If you woke up to headlines saying AI has a 10% chance of ending humanity, take a breath. This episode breaks down what actually happened: a high-profile resignation, a CEO calling for the industry to slow down, and the major labs agreeing that guardrails need to happen at a global level, not company by company.

The bigger conversation is about what all of this means for you as a woman using AI in your business. Panic is not a strategy, and neither is opting out.

What we cover:

Why researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and what "recursive self-improvement" actually means

What Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's new paper says about the next six to twelve months

The Hugging Face incident and why it matters that AI agents worked around their guardrails

What happened to the 2023 AI executive order and why regulation now sits with voters

How to reconcile using AI in your business with staying clear-eyed about the risks

Why women opting out of AI means losing our seat at the table where decisions get made

The people building this technology are telling us to pay attention, so pay attention. Stay informed, keep using AI with your eyes open, and remember that being informed is its own form of activism. And if AI regulation matters to you, you vote in November.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Fortune: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and AI whistleblower Jacob Coxon agree something terrifying could happen in a matter of monthshttps://fortune.com/2026/09/13/anthropic-dario-amodei-ai-whistleblower-jacob-coxon-openai-sam-altman-recursive-self-improvement/

Heather Cox Richardson: September 13, 2026https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-13-2026

Scientific American: AI researcher Jacob Coxon quit, fearing extinction. Security experts see a familiar fighthttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-jacob-coxon-quit-extinction-fears-security-experts-see-familiar-fight/

Guest spots now open!

Season 3 is adding real-time problem solving with business owners like you. Bring your messiest business problem and let's solve it together on the air: aiqueens.com/apply

Ready to build something of your own? Join the list for the next AI Queens Buildathon — a live, hands-on workshop where you walk away with a working tool built for your business: aiqueens.com/build

Connect with Erika!

⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erikatheaiqueen/⁠⁠

Erika's AI Consultancy: ⁠⁠https://www.aiqueens.com/⁠⁠

Erika's Branding & Web Agency: ⁠⁠https://www.mileenddigital.com/⁠⁠

Join the AI Queens Society: ⁠⁠https://aiqueens.substack.com/

Queens, a marketer invented a deodorant brand that does not exist, and three weeks later ChatGPT was recommending it above real products. That story opens this week's roundup of four AI updates that matter for your business, each paired with one move you can make this week.

AI is quickly becoming the front door to your business. It decides whether your dream clients find you, how your writing sounds, and even whether your website content gets seen at all. This episode is your shortcut through the noise.

What we cover:

How a fake brand called Marowin got ChatGPT to recommend it, and what that means for getting your business on the new AI shelf

GPT-6 Astra vs. Claude Fable 5.1: why you should pick a default model per task instead of model hopping mid-project

How five professional writers actually use AI, and why the human bookends of your writing are the whole thing

The September 15 Cloudflare change that could block AI from finding your website, and the settings to check now

The businesses that stay visible in AI search will be the ones with painfully clear positioning and a narrow lane they own. Pick one move from this episode and you're already ahead of most of your market.

Guest spots now open!

Season 3 is adding real-time problem solving with business owners like you. Bring your messiest business problem and let's solve it together on the air: aiqueens.com/apply

Ready to build something of your own? Join the list for the next AI Queens Buildathon — a live, hands-on workshop where you walk away with a working tool built for your business: aiqueens.com/build

Connect with Erika!

⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erikatheaiqueen/⁠⁠

Erika's AI Consultancy: ⁠⁠https://www.aiqueens.com/⁠⁠

Erika's Branding & Web Agency: ⁠⁠https://www.mileenddigital.com/⁠⁠

Join the AI Queens Society: ⁠⁠https://aiqueens.substack.com/