Influential Woman · AI consulting
anne cantera
Founder
Sayville, Ny, NY
Her Story
About anne
My typical day as a founder involves a lot of outreach trying to get paid clients, managing existing clients, and doing a lot of speaking and teaching. There's a mix of client work, lead outreach, teaching and speaking - like today I taught a one-hour class and did a one-hour podcast. I have my own podcast called Designathon, which is about the delta between the world of design and now the world of AI. I got ahead of AI very early, so through my not-for-profit, I spend a lot of time trying to help the out-of-work design community upskill so they will continue to have work in the future. It's a hard time - there's a lot of sad people, denial, and fear, and that's just the people who've been working in the field. There are also people graduating who did everything they were told to do, have their student debt and master's degree, but there's no jobs for them because of AI - they need a whole new skill set. My not-for-profit is really just a website that shows the roadmap of skills they need to get to the next level to be able to stay employable.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with anne
01What do you attribute your success to?
I saw a post by Rupa Chaturvedi maybe over 4 years ago about AI or conversation science, and it was like in a movie - when the light comes up, and the angel, and you have that moment of knowing. Literally the next day after that post, I changed career tracks. And it was a great thing that I did. In the time where other people in my position are putting in 800 applications and getting no work, I have a booming business as well as recruiters almost daily reaching out to me. It was a divine moment, I swear it was, when I saw that post. I said, oh my, yeah, she's right, this is the future of everything. She had already been in design for 25 years at that point, so she knew what was coming. I was just lucky enough to get on board very early on.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
The most important thing you can do is learn. I always tell people AI about the AI, because it can teach you anything you want to learn. And I have people come up to me after my talks and walk up to me and be like, I hate AI! Like, all the more reasons you should be learning everything you can about it. How can you protect yourself if you're ignorant about it? It's really important to me that women don't get left behind on this.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The opportunity is learning new things, and if you enjoy that, because that's what it's all about - this constant, consistent bit of learning. Life is about to get very convenient for some, but I do really think that AI is gonna create sort of a class divide. If you have money, you have good AI. If you have no money, you're not gonna have any AI, and that's gonna tell you a really distinctive message to people who do have it, even at a medium level. So that concerns me. I have a lot of concerns - I have a book in the works called The AI Perfect, and a lot of it is about how much internal conflict I have working in this space. A lot of what I do is work with medium businesses, woman-owned businesses, businesses that normally would not get a lot of attention and help, and trying to elevate those people who normally don't have a lot of - I just try to be that woman that helps lift all boats, especially the female boats.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I try to be that woman that helps lift all boats, especially the female boats. A lot of what I do is work with medium businesses, woman-owned businesses, businesses that normally would not get a lot of attention and help, and trying to elevate those people. It's really important to me that women don't get left behind on AI, and also that children are protected. We did a really bad job protecting them from social media, so I think we should protect them from AI. I want to last a long time, and I don't want to be elderly and unwell. I want to be elderly and strong. I think it's just really important to get off screens - I always say I'm going down to the art studio to grow my brain cells back.
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