Stop Settling for the Number Two Seat: What an AI Founder Wants Women to Know (with Rebecca Liao)
AI Queens: Smart AF AI Tools, Automation, & Business Tips with Erika StanleyShow Notes
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/
More from AI Queens: Smart AF AI Tools, Automation, & Business Tips with Erika Stanley
Queens, if you have been telling yourself that Claude Code is for developers and not for you, this one is going to change your mind. Hope Norton spent over 20 years in telecom sales at companies like Verizon and T-Mobile before founding Norton Mobility to help small and mid-sized fleets make smarter technology decisions. She had never coded a thing. Then a former sales engineer sat her down at a Starbucks and told her to open Claude Code and brain dump her idea. One weekend later, she had built Compliance Hub, a tool that is now live on her website and helping trucking companies manage drivers, trucks, and DOT compliance in one place.
Queens, if your AI agrees with every idea you bring it, you have a problem.
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.
Queens, what would it take for your business to keep running without you in the room?
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.