In this episode of the Executive Connect Podcast, Melissa Aarskaug sits down with Dr. Ayesha Khanna, one of the world’s leading voices on artificial intelligence, ethics, and human-centered innovation. Ayesha explains why AI is not a strategy but an accelerant, and why leaders must start with purpose, governance, and trust before adopting new tools. This conversation explores how ethical AI actually drives growth, why replacing humans with automation backfires, and how the smartest companies use AI to reduce burnout, strengthen teams, and build long-term trust with customers. From global policy to real-world business examples, this episode offers a clear framework for leaders navigating AI without losing their humanity.

Chapters:

(0:00) AI Is Not a Strategy

(2:48) Why Human-Centered AI Matters

(5:45) The Biggest AI Mistake CEOs Make

(7:34) Growth Mindset vs Efficiency Thinking

(9:57) How Companies Use AI the Right Way

(12:27) AI Governance and Guardrails

(14:55) Human Skills That Matter Most

(18:51) AI, Burnout, and the Future of Work

(21:07) Closing Thoughts on Ethical AI

0:00

CEOs come to me saying, “We need AI.” And I always respond, “No, you need a

0:07

problem worth solving.” AI is not a strategy. It’s an

0:11

accelerant. If you don’t know where you’re going, AI just gets you lost

0:16

faster and more expensively. That’s really important for us to focus on is

0:22

the purpose and intentionality of why we’re using AI to either reach

0:28

our goal or to solve a particular problem. AI for its own sake is not

0:34

useful. Some people talk about the future of AI like a sci-fi trailer. Then

0:40

there’s today’s guest who actually builds it minus the drama and the robots

0:46

marching down the street. Dr. Aisha Kana is one of the most influential AI

0:51

thinkers shaping how businesses grow, how cities evolve, and how humans can

0:58

stay at the center of it all and this innovation. She’s advised Fortune 500

1:03

CEOs, guided governments, founded multiple companies, and still finds time

1:09

to champion girls and women entering tech. If you’ve ever wondered how AI can

1:15

move forward without leaving people behind, this episode will probably

1:20

become one of your new favorite blueprints.

1:24

Welcome, Dr. Aisha. Thank you so much, Melissa. It’s such a

1:29

pleasure to be here today. Now, you’ve worked everywhere from Wall

1:34

Street to cutting edge tech labs and global boardrooms.

1:39

When you reflect on your path, what first sparked your passion in AI and

1:46

strengthening the human potential? Well, you know, I was on Wall Street

1:53

working um on developing the quantitative models behind trading

1:59

algorithms and on Wall Street watching algorithms

2:03

make million dollar decisions in milliseconds.

2:07

And in the beginning, I thought this is genius until I really realized that,

2:13

you know, the algorithm knew everything about the numbers and nothing about the

2:17

people behind them. And so we had issues like the credit crisis for example where

2:25

you know there are human beings behind all the statistics people who are losing

2:30

their jobs people who are losing their homes in the mortgage crisis and it

2:35

really made me rethink how I was approaching this artificial

2:42

intelligence and the work around it. I realized that AI without humanity is an

2:48

intelligence. It’s just fast math. I wanted to counter that and make the kind

2:55

of AI where we see people as human beings and not just as numbers and build

3:01

things that actually improves their lives. So I think that was when it

3:06

really hit me how much it mattered to me that we should build AI that’s very

3:11

human- centered. I love that. There’s so much in that.

3:16

So, how did that background influence your approach to building ethical AI

3:22

systems today? I think there are a couple of things

3:26

that are really important. One of the things for ethical AI systems

3:31

is that you really have to have a discipline around it. So, people think

3:36

it’s, you know, it’s emotional. they think it’s a nice to have or you’re

3:41

being a good person, but it’s not about that. AI governance is a discipline that

3:46

you need to have in order to make AI that is not biased, is not giving the

3:52

wrong information, is not meaningfully

3:57

upsetting or ruining people’s lives in any way. These are principles and then

4:04

there are systems and processes by which you execute these principles. So I’m a

4:10

big believer in governance and discipline. And so whenever we have any

4:16

use case even it could be that you want to watch a particular movie and the AI

4:22

is personalizing it for you or you’re looking for a job um and you’re

4:27

selecting and your employer is selecting résumés based on AI. Whatever algorithm

4:32

the company is using, it must be able to first think about how it could

4:39

negatively affect that person. What are the risks that happen when you use an AI

4:44

and it’s interacting with a human or making decisions on a human? And then

4:50

you have a risk heat map where it says this is high risk and I can mitigate

4:55

this risk or this is high risk and I can’t mitigate this risk. And if you

4:59

can’t mitigate your risk, such as making a health decision for your aging parent,

5:06

then you should not expose that to your patients or to your customers.

5:13

I love that. Now, you advise worldwide leaders on AI adoptions, mostly CEOs.

5:20

What do they misunderstand about the digital transformation? And what do you

5:24

tell them before they even think about choosing a tool or starting down that

5:29

journey? Ready to lead smarter and invest wiser?

5:33

On the Executive Connect podcast, we unpack executive strategies for wealth

5:39

and influence. Hit the subscribe button now. Don’t just watch, act. CEOs come to

5:45

me saying, “We need AI.” And I always respond, “No, you need a problem worth

5:52

solving. AI is not a strategy. It’s an

5:55

accelerate. If you don’t know where you’re going, AI just gets you lost

6:00

faster and more expensively. That’s really important for us to focus

6:05

on is the purpose and intentionality of why we’re using AI to either reach

6:13

our goal or to solve a particular problem. AI for its own sake is not

6:19

useful and actually is quite risky because you’re not paying attention and

6:24

you’re not anchored in serving your customers properly.

6:28

Now, what do you think is the most dangerous assumptions that executives

6:32

are making right now when it comes to AI?

6:37

One of the dangerous assumptions is that we can replace human beings quite

6:41

easily. Actually, talent is not easy to replace. People who care about your

6:48

business, who understand the problems your customers are facing, are loyal to

6:54

the brand and excited by it, you’re not going to find an AI that’s really able

7:00

to emulate that in a significant manner. Lots of CEOs sometimes get excited by

7:07

short-term gains and fire people when they start using AI automation, but then

7:13

later on they’ll hire them back because the reason is that ultimately you want

7:19

to grow the company and to grow the company you need humans who will think

7:23

of strategy, interact with clients, who will think about problem solving with AI

7:29

assistance. But AI assistants on their own can’t do that. The biggest issue is

7:34

that our mindset needs to change from an efficiency frame to a growth mindset.

7:40

Any company that has a growth mindset will think of growing, which means they

7:46

will need their talent. And any company that just wants to automate itself to

7:50

death, becoming leaner and more efficient, that is not a formula for

7:56

growing your customer base, innovating new products. You have to work with AI.

8:01

But I strongly believe you should hang on to their best people.

8:05

I love that you said that. That’s I was wondering where you were going to go

8:08

with it because I do hear it a lot. We hear it, you know, me living in Texas,

8:12

we’ve heard a lot of CEOs in the tech sector letting many people go to replace

8:17

him and you’re spot on with that. So, I’m curious to get your perspective or

8:22

if there’s a company out there that comes to mind that’s doing AI right and

8:27

what can we learn from the companies that are doing it correctly?

8:32

In this p respect, there are a lot of companies like IKEA that are from

8:38

Europe. I feel that they have a very human- centered approach towards AI. For

8:44

example, when they decided to use AI chat bots for customer service, they

8:51

realized that they did not need all these customer service call agents.

8:56

So instead of just letting them go, they began to think about how they could

9:02

bring more value to their customers using this knowledge that these customer

9:07

call center agents have. For example, when people call IKEA, they’re talking

9:11

about their dream home. They’re talking about what they want. They’re talking

9:14

about their aspirations. They’re talking about what they didn’t like about the

9:17

furniture. These customer call service agents actually understood a lot about

9:23

people and what they wanted in their homes. So they trained them in interior

9:28

design so that could they could become virtual interior design consultants.

9:35

And so they amplified their potential to be of value to customers in another way

9:41

instead of just immediately having a knee-jerk reaction that we should just

9:46

save this money and get rid of all our important loyal and innovative and

9:52

exciting problems solving staff. Those are the kind of stories that I love.

9:57

They don’t always make headlines, but they show that this is an approach

10:03

that’s human- centered and is growth centered and is customer centric. You

10:08

see, I didn’t mention AI in any of those three things. And I love it because I do

10:13

hear the words, you know, AI is thrown around a lot. So is human- centered AI.

10:19

And so for someone who actually builds it, what does that look like daytoday to

10:25

build something like that? You know, I think that it really comes

10:32

down to the engineer who stops mil build, who stops in the middle of

10:39

building his code or her code and asks, “What happens when this system is wrong?

10:46

Who gets hurt?” That question asked early enough is worth billions of

10:52

dollars because if you don’t pay attention culturally

10:57

to having a sensitized workforce and training your AI to be sensitive to

11:04

human needs, then you are going to eventually lose a lot of money if money

11:11

even if money was all that you cared about in terms of reputation,

11:16

customer distrust, If anything goes wrong, you will lose more than ever

11:22

before than all the money you save through being kind of, you know, not

11:26

cautious enough, not caring enough. So for me it’s a culture of training of

11:34

leadership where you set at the board level and at the leadership level that

11:40

it matters to us that the AI we use is responsible and safe and then it’s not a

11:46

top-down approach. It’s literally down to the project manager who’s putting it

11:51

together, to the coder who’s writing the code, to the salesperson who is selling

11:57

it to people, to the customer call service agent. It’s like everybody is

12:03

using AI in service of the customer and is very aware that there are guard rails

12:09

around it. So, they’re not hurting the very people they have been called upon

12:14

to serve in this company. I love that. I like the word guardrails.

12:18

I think that’s so important. So, let’s talk a little bit about collaboration

12:23

between what we’re talking about, the humans and the machine. What does it

12:27

look like when it’s done well? The key is that there are two important

12:35

ways that you introduce AI agents. The first is you just don’t announce that

12:42

you’re going to bring an AI agent and send an email to everybody that prom

12:45

tomorrow we’ll be using this AI agent and you don’t tell your staff, hey,

12:49

guess what? This is going to be great. It’s going to do 30% of your job. I

12:53

don’t know anyone who’s really truly excited about that. People have kids in

12:59

college. They have mortgages. They have to plan their retirement. They have

13:03

elderly parents to look after. Inflation is killing us. look at the price of

13:07

eggs. Um, you need to understand that people get nervous with that kind of

13:14

roll out. Plus, you need their buy in. So, they’re getting nervous, which means

13:19

they’re going to resist using the tool. I know many companies that have rolled

13:24

out co-pilots, even Microsoft copilot to everyone, which is a great idea, but

13:28

nobody’s really using it. So the first thing you do is you sit down with your

13:32

team and you say this is the workflow how can we redesign it in an optimal way

13:39

in a better way so that you have more time and that brings them into the

13:44

journey they feel like they’re part of the decision-m process and then you say

13:49

looks like based on this analysis you’ll have 20% more time what do you think you

13:54

would like to do with that 20% or let’s brainstorm together maybe you’re good at

13:59

strategy Maybe you’re good at opening new offices. Maybe you’re good at

14:02

speaking, designing new products. That makes them feel assured that they have a

14:08

job, that they have a career path. Now you combine those two things together,

14:12

which is essentially good communication and collaboration between humans first.

14:18

Then you bring in the AI, step three, and train them on it. Train them how to

14:24

use it. And there are not enough good courses that are not like staggeringly

14:28

boring tool-based courses. We need more engaging courses that are workflow

14:34

centered, use case centered that really speak to lawyers, doctors, entertainers,

14:41

producers about how to use AI to amplify their own potential. And those are the

14:46

three things that you need. And two of them are about human collaboration. And

14:50

the third is about human AI collaboration.

14:55

Yeah. And I know you’ve said the most valuable skill in the AI era is human.

15:00

So what skill do you think is going to be the most essential in this AI driven

15:06

world we’re in? The most essential skill in an AIdriven

15:13

world is the openness to change and adapt because jobs are going to be

15:19

changing, tasks are going to be changing. You cannot get nervous. You

15:24

cannot be resistant because then you’re setting yourself up for failure. And why

15:28

would you do that? What you need to know is that the World Economic Forum has

15:33

said and it interviewed a thousand CEOs that together employ 11 million people

15:39

across 55 industries. And they asked them, “What’s the biggest disruption

15:45

your company’s facing?” And they said without hesitation, “It’s AI

15:50

automation.” And then they said, “Wow, are you going to fire all these people?”

15:55

And they said, “Oh, God, no. We need people. We need people who are willing

16:00

to engage and create this new AI empowered organization. So there’s a big

16:07

skills mismatch and gap in the market right now. If you are not if you stop

16:13

being scared and actually start noticing, wow, there’s a gap. I can just

16:19

step into that gap and have a very long career, then that’s really exciting.

16:26

But a lot of the media noise and hype, which is true in some respects that AI

16:32

is going to transform every organization, but it’s also super scary

16:36

because people think it’s going to take away their jobs. But actually, there’s a

16:41

great need for people who can work with AI, who can think about growing the

16:45

organization and serving customers better with AI. And that’s the mindset

16:50

that we need. Without that mindset, you are eventually going to end up in a

16:57

situation where you may lose your job and may find it difficult to find

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and enter the promo code exec. Yeah, because we need to be evolving,

17:36

right? Things that were done the same for years are there’s more efficient,

17:41

effective ways to do things. And we’re humans. We’re supposed to evolve. We’re

17:44

supposed to change. And it’s funny. I love that because, you know, so much of

17:48

my career I had to do more than one thing and I’m like, gosh, I’m like this

17:52

Swiss Army knife. I’m not a marketer. I’m not an engineer and I’m not a

17:55

salesperson. What am I? But now we’re moving into this world where all those

17:59

skills combined are necessary. And if you know how to use the technology and

18:04

you have knowledge in all these sectors, it’s going to be so different. And you

18:09

know, we’ve interviewed people on this podcast in, you know, big firms that

18:13

refuse to embrace AI. And I believe those ones, as you’re mentioning, are

18:19

going to be left behind and without evolving their staff and um they’re not

18:25

going to be be able to keep up with the ones that are leveraging the humans and

18:28

the technology because it’s it’s not just humans anymore. and it’s quite too

18:32

expensive to, you know, staff up for every little thing that could be done

18:36

with, you know, an agent or other tools that are out there. And so I love it.

18:41

I’m now I want to talk about this is another

18:45

I just wanted to point out that just it’s not just that it makes you

18:51

more productive, it prevents burnout. So if you look at a company like a bridge,

18:58

it essentially is there to help doctors to record conversations between the

19:04

doctor and the patient with the patient’s permission that allows the

19:08

doctor to fully pay attention to the client to the patient in this case that

19:14

records everything and then puts it in medical lingo and puts it in the medical

19:19

workflow like Epic or some other tool. By the way, people spend hours. We don’t

19:25

realize that as patients, but doctors spend hours after we leave them putting

19:30

in the notes and they don’t even have enough time for lunch. They are getting

19:35

burnt out. And who wants a doctor who’s burnt out? Not me. I mean, it just

19:39

defeats the whole purpose of a caring, empathetic, highly skilled doctor who

19:45

can pay attention to you and make you healthier. So there are really important

19:52

AI assistants coming out that allow us to do what our intention was when we

19:58

meant went to law school, med school, um you know the creative art school,

20:04

wherever we met, business school and really focus on that as opposed to the

20:10

shock we get when we actually go to work and have to do all this grunt work.

20:14

I love that. Yeah, absolutely. all the things burn out. I’m so glad you brought

20:19

that up because I I love all of that. It’s amazing how much more we can get

20:26

done and how much more free cycles we have in our mind because in my

20:31

industries I work in is on always on 24 by7 all the time and our brains can’t

20:36

process all that for an extended period of time without burnout. So I’m so glad

20:41

you brought that up. Another thing I want to unpack with you and I love love

20:46

love this. Um, you founded 21c girls that make AI accessible for young

20:53

learners and now amplify to support midcareer women.

21:00

First of all, thank you. What drives you to build these different groups for the

21:07

next generation? My big mission in life is to make AI

21:16

seem doable, accessible, so that people don’t feel like they’re watching a movie

21:23

in which they have no part. It’s so unfair. You can get such an advantage in

21:30

your work, even in your home, by having AI do some of the work that frees up

21:37

your time to spend more time with your kids. focus on your health, spend more

21:42

time developing your skills and strategy.

21:45

But instead, what we are doing is we are making it very difficult and surrounding

21:54

AI with jargon and elitism that only people of a certain education or a

22:00

certain kind of education can actually do this work. And what I wanted to do

22:07

was I noticed gaps. So at that time I noticed a gap in young girls and they

22:15

were feeling very left behind. So we did a survey that we asked girls how do you

22:21

feel about the AI revolution and they said we see it we read about it but we

22:29

don’t see ourselves in it and we maybe also thinks the boys may be better at

22:33

1. So that was really upsetting and shocking for me to read. And then we

22:38

gave them a course, three hours every Saturday for 10 weeks

22:45

and we taught them the basics of AI because by the way it’s pretty logical

22:49

and easy to understand even if you’re not an engineer.

22:53

And then we showed how business problems are solved with AI solutions so that

22:59

they understand the main purpose of AI is problem solving. And then we finally

23:04

showed them how to create responsible AI so that it is ethical and it’s

23:11

sustainable and it’s safe. Now 10 weeks later they went these girls and they we

23:16

took another survey and they said, “Oh my god, we feel so good. We’re going to

23:21

do this. We feel we could beat everybody in the market.” They were excited. They

23:26

were driven. They gave no technology background and all. They gave these

23:31

presentation and they did projects and the name of the game is confidence. So

23:36

once they had confidence they got a mindset that they could actually

23:41

participate in this economy. So I did that for 10 years and we did we got

23:46

great sponsors like PayPal and uh Google and Visa and we ran these courses and

23:53

they did very well and thousands of girls went through the program and then

23:58

I started noticing another gap that people women when they are techies they

24:03

go into the industry but then they change their route midway through and

24:11

it’s kind of the broken en rung on the ladder. What happens to women in tech

24:17

that they shift gears? Is it because they take a break because of caring for

24:24

someone, a partner, a pet, a child? Is it because of our uh hormones and they

24:30

need a break? We all go through many different cycles, whatever it is, they

24:34

need support. And what happens when they’re out of the market, let’s say on

24:40

maternity leave or they take a break or just take a mental health sabbatical is

24:46

that they lose their confidence because everything’s moving very fast. So I

24:50

wanted to create an education platform and give scholarships to mid-career

24:54

women in need to say you may be sitting at home here easy digestible tutorials

25:00

so that when you go back in three months, a year, year and a half, you ace

25:05

that interview. In fact, you’re ahead of those people who are not paying

25:09

attention to this and you can continue. There is no broken rung. I want you to

25:15

take that out of your mind and you can continue to build the kind of career

25:21

that you want. And so that is my logic. It’s all about confidence in an age of

25:27

AI because it’s going to keep changing and your mindset has to be constantly I

25:32

want to learn things and I have a future in this. I deserve to have a future in

25:37

this because I’m that good and I understand how to use it.

25:42

I love that because I I think that is one of the reasons and barriers exactly

25:46

what you said that prevents women and girls from entering technology and AI is

25:51

the confidence is getting in there. I as a fellow engineer I was there was three

25:56

of us in the program and we weren’t the same. We we processed things

26:02

differently. We learned differently. We had a a different way that we did

26:06

things. Um, but I also think that’s one of the best things that’s ever happened

26:10

to me is to be in these programs because just exactly what you said, my

26:15

confidence grew at a at a level that was unbelievable when I actually got in

26:21

there. So, I would absolutely echo what you said. Talk to me a little bit. If

26:25

you could redesign tech globally, what would you change first?

26:34

I would really make sure that trust was the infrastructure on which all AI is

26:42

built. And what I mean by that is that there was a real leadership

26:52

conviction and direction to the rest of the company that we are going to build

26:59

AI that truly benefits our customers and we are going to make sure that they

27:06

don’t need to worry about anything from manipulation to cyber attacks to biases

27:14

to any kind of issue because that means that they will continue to be loyal to

27:20

1. There is so much noise with every startup calling every big company out

27:26

there that if you’re not careful about the partner that you choose, whether

27:31

it’s an advisor, whether it’s a team that you choose or the platform that you

27:36

choose to be on, you could actually create a lot of problems for yourself in

27:42

terms of vulnerability of the entire system. Let’s say you had a factory, the

27:47

whole factory can be vulnerable. they can hijack it. Um, even imagine we’re

27:52

going to be making more drugs using AI. So, the potential for things to go wrong

27:58

is related to the massive potential that we have of everything that can go right.

28:04

So once you make trust the pillar on which AI is built, not speed or

28:11

efficiency or uh profitability, you still get to the same place, but you

28:17

get to it in a much more human- centered way. I think that’s what we need to do.

28:22

I love that. Now tell me, what stories from the programs that you’ve created

28:26

have impacted you the most? There’s so many stories. I have women

28:32

who’ve come up to me and said that it gave them the confidence to actually go

28:38

out and switch jobs when they were unhappy. Women who’ve come to me and

28:42

said they put their hand up in meetings a lot more. When people talk about AI,

28:48

they’ll be silenced and then they’ll just put their hand up and say something

28:52

and the CEO will notice them. And more than that, I’ve had women say that when

28:58

somebody’s coming from the tech team or some vendor is coming and they’re, you

29:02

know, being snobbish and talking about this techno mumbo jumbo, they stop them

29:07

and they say, “Stop. Explain it to me in logical language so that I understand it

29:13

because logic and customer service is the core of why we’re doing this.” So

29:19

they have built their confidence because they’re in a mindset that this is

29:24

something they can do and this is some somewhere that they can have impact and

29:30

they can make money off it too. Remember it’s it doesn’t have to be one or the

29:34

other. You can do good be a great entrepreneur and also make a lot of

29:39

money. There are many ways in which AI can not only ensure your career but also

29:45

make you the kind of advocate for your customers in terms of any product or

29:50

service that you’re putting out there that will ensure you have a meaningful

29:53

career and a lucrative one as well. That’s great. Now you advise governments

29:58

and major cities on AI innovation governance. What global trends do you

30:04

advise leaders on right now that you they should be paying attention to as we

30:09

get ahead in AI? There are two major trends happening at

30:14

the moment. One is at the policy level and one is at the technology level. So

30:19

let’s start with the technology level. There is going to be a proliferation of

30:24

AI agents. These are AI assistants that will actually act on your behalf. not

30:31

just summarize or generate information for you, videos, sound, whatever it may

30:37

1. You could actually give them something and they would be kind of like

30:41

a project manager assistant that will go and then tell other agents what to do.

30:46

Let’s say you wanted a marketing campaign. You tell your marketing

30:50

project manager assistant, which is an AI, and it would go to a

30:56

Canva assistant and actually make the poster for you. and it would go to a

31:00

social media assistant and actually put it on social media for you and then it

31:04

would go to an analytics AI assistant and which give you the analytics for

31:07

you. So these are many things which will happen in every company where AI agents

31:14

will be assisting the officers of the company to execute faster and better.

31:20

That’s one thing that will happen whenever some so much digital happens in

31:25

the nervous system of organizations, governments and cities. You have with it

31:32

a great awareness of the risks associated as well. So the attack

31:37

surface as they like to say in cyber security or the vulnerability surface of

31:42

hacking, bias, manipulation, all of these increase by a lot. So the way that

31:49

you mitigate risk is you have good frameworks. But the second trend is that

31:54

governments all over the world don’t want to depend on the goodwill of

31:58

corporations to govern themselves. So there are a lot more regulations coming

32:02

out, guidelines coming out and if you don’t comply with these guidelines,

32:07

there would be fines. Maybe one day there’ll be jail time. So that’s what

32:12

you need to balance. You need to balance that. You want to roll out these AI

32:16

agents, but you also need to be aware that new technology guidelines, AI

32:22

guidelines are coming across not only from the European Union or states in the

32:26

United States, but all over the world now from Saudi Arabia to Singapore to

32:30

Brazil. And you have to create systems from day one that could be compliant or

32:37

you’ll have to rebuild everything again. Now, is there a specific There’s

32:42

probably many of these, but tell me, is there a specific concern that

32:47

you’re I mean, there’s a lot of them, right? I mean, there’s not just one.

32:51

What global cons what concerns you globally in the next five years as it

32:56

rel is it cyber security? Is it the trust? Is there one thing you can put

33:01

your finger on, right? Or is it just all the things we’ve discussed so far?

33:05

There are two things. One of the things that keeps me up at night is cyber

33:09

security. This is insane. As much as we’re using

33:14

AI, cyber hackers are also using AI to infiltrate companies. So, you need to

33:21

use AI to fight AI and you need to have extremely good defense systems. When you

33:27

look at cyber security groups um they are dealing with cyber hackers like

33:36

scattered spider. So when I heard about scattered spider and the way it had

33:40

bought down uh marks and spencers in the UK companies in the US and also like

33:48

quantis airlines in Australia like all over the world. I thought wow this is

33:52

such a sophisticated group of hackers. But it turns out it was a group of

33:57

teenage boys from Eastern Europe who were just finding these things on the

34:02

dark web and using these AI deep fe fakes to get into companies. So they

34:08

would call an employee and convince them that they were another employee and get

34:13

a password reset and get into the company for example. So we have to be

34:18

extremely cognizant of the fact that there are many ways in which AI is being

34:23

used even by not such sophisticated engineers to actually get into companies

34:28

and wreck havoc. You can have hundreds of millions of dollars of loss of

34:32

operating income. You can have your entire operation come to a standstill.

34:36

So that’s the most important thing. The second thing that really worries me

34:43

is the digital divide. What we don’t want is that there’s some of us who have

34:48

access to AI and we suddenly become superhuman in our productivity and then

34:53

the rest of them don’t have access and are not trained so they start falling

34:58

behind. I actually have a lot of hope that that won’t happen. You see that a

35:03

lot of these personalized AI tutors are available on WhatsApp in Africa or on

35:09

cheap data plans in India. And there’s so much enthusiasm in these countries to

35:15

learn and then do digital work that I believe that with mobility, mobile

35:21

access, infrastructure, telecommunications

35:25

and free AI assistance that are being provided online, we will actually have

35:29

millions of more people join. But we need to keep a lookout that

35:35

um the powers that have an interest in keeping them at bay in terms of

35:40

development don’t kind of win and we continue to take everyone along for the

35:45

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36:34

cyber security is my jam. I’m I’ve been in it working in it for 14 years and I

36:40

am shocked and baffled. I have worked with over 90% of the gambling gaming

36:47

industry worldwide and I am blown away at how much is not going well in

36:54

regulated places where organizations are compliant. They are compliant against

37:00

regulation. Yet security doesn’t equal compliance doesn’t equal security but

37:06

security most likely does equal compliance. A lot of times when we

37:10

really focus on security and our data and so I I think of all the things

37:16

that’s what keeps me up at night too is the security and so you know we have

37:23

covered so much I think the one thing you know kind of in closing what

37:28

personal values has guided you through all the different places and spaces

37:33

you’ve been and you’ve lived and not only worked in but the give back side of

37:39

you even when the world is changing so fast. What has guided you through all

37:44

the stages of your life? What’s guided me through every stage,

37:51

Melissa, is that I truly believe every human being is remarkable in some way.

37:58

It’s an observation that I made a long time ago as a teenager and I have not

38:04

found a single person who’s not absolutely interesting, creative,

38:10

brilliant in some aspect of their life. And when you find that, you really rebel

38:17

against any kind of elitism. could be tech elitism, AI elitism, um, sexism,

38:24

agism. All of this looks very antiquated and like old school to me.

38:30

So I really enjoy it when I’m in the company of people who are amplifying

38:36

that side of themselves who are happy and finding ways to be to be to be to

38:43

their full potential because there is something in them and that’s what

38:49

motivates me to use AI to teach them to how to reach that point and it’s totally

38:55

selfish because I have a better more meaningful life with such people around

38:59

me as collaborators, as friends. Uh when I go out into the street, it’s just a

39:05

better life. I’m a super social, chatty person. I love being around people. And

39:11

so, it’s not so much a value, it’s a true observation that human potential

39:18

exists in the most exciting, remarkable, interesting ways in each one of us. and

39:24

we should have the confidence and a safe and trusted AI assistant to help us get

39:29

there. I love it. Now, I’d be aiss remiss if I

39:35

didn’t ask this question because you balance so many things very well between

39:41

entrepreneurship, your global work, your social impact. Is there a ritual that

39:47

keeps you centered? Is it a habit? Talk to me about that word that B word that I

39:52

don’t know if I necessarily believe in myself. It’s more like integration. But

39:57

talk to me about how you do it. There are two things that are really

40:01

important to me. One is that in my mind it’s all one flow. So even though it

40:09

seems like I’m doing different things, it’s all related to AI and work, AI and

40:15

policy, AI and education. So my mind doesn’t have that cognitive dissonance

40:23

of switching between different things. I’m never switching. It’s really more of

40:28

the same that I’m doing. And that’s because the mission is very strong. And

40:33

so that’s the guiding line for me. When I was younger, I don’t think I

40:39

understood how much one can be anchored in one’s mission. And the second thing

40:45

that’s very important to me is to remain very even keeled throughout the day to

40:50

remain very calm throughout the day. So I can bring up the energy when needed.

40:55

But in general by staying calm, not getting too excited or too upset has

41:01

been very useful for me because then I can go from one part of my life to

41:07

another and it’s relatively seamless. Maybe that comes with age, but I hope my

41:12

kids and all our kids and young people out there can really realize. And for

41:17

that, you can use meditation, just walks or just speak more slowly. You can do

41:22

breathing exercises. All of these things make it much easier to have a balanced

41:29

life. I love this. And since you mentioned it,

41:32

if your daughter or a young girl or anybody’s daughter asked you, “What does

41:37

it mean to be a strong woman in tech?” How would you answer?

41:42

I would say that to be a strong woman in tech, you have to unleash your inner

41:48

creative soul. It’s a myth that engineering and tech is not creative. In

41:54

fact, it’s quite the opposite. It is one of the most creative things that someone

42:00

can do just like being a pianist, cooking a great meal, painting a

42:05

beautiful picture. This is a way that you tinker and build and experiment and

42:12

really let your imagination fly more and more to build things that excite you.

42:18

They don’t have to be noble things. They don’t have to be they can be anything

42:22

you want, but that is the soul uh that feeds of um the soul is what you’re

42:30

really trying to feed and technology allows you to do that.

42:34

Well said. I love it. Any final thoughts? I know we covered so many

42:38

things rapid fire here today. Is there anything that you want to leave with our

42:43

listeners that we didn’t touch on today? Yeah, Melissa, I would just say to

42:48

everyone listening right now, please go and go to TechCrunch or go to MIT

42:56

Review, pick one newsletter. I also have a newsletter. you can go to mine that

43:03

doesn’t just teach you about the technology but is teaching you about

43:07

what’s happening in the world uh whether it’s policy or whether it’s how startups

43:12

are solving problems and what will happen is over time you will just begin

43:17

to get in the vibe you will start using noticing patterns ah AI can do this or

43:24

this is an issue AI can have just by reading these stories for a couple of

43:28

minutes a day just do that And pretty soon you’ll be raising your hand. You’ll

43:34

be leading teams and your career will be rock solid and futurep proof.

43:40

I love it. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your time and knowledge

43:44

with our listeners. What’s the best way for them to learn more about 21C girls

43:49

or the Amplify programs? The best way is to just follow me on

43:54

LinkedIn. Amplify is launching in February and it’s amplify potential.ai.

44:01

But before that, just follow me on LinkedIn and I’ll be giving all of the

44:05

updates. I’m also on Instagram, Aisha Kana 1, and on LinkedIn, Dr. Aisha Kana.

44:10

Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Aisha, and I appreciate your time.

44:16

That’s the Executive Connect