Women In AI Breakfast & Coffee at SF Tech Week 2025

During SF Tech Week by a16z, we had a full house at Digital Jungle SF for our Women in AI Coffee & Breakfast, hosted by InstaLILY AI and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Our panel, “Beyond Intelligence: When AI Starts to Act,” was moderated by Sasha Newman-Oktan, Chief of Staff at InstaLILY, and featured invaluable insights from:

• Hilary Headlee, Advisory Leader, Insight Partners
• Vivienne Wei, COO, Unified Agentforce Platform at Salesforce
• Paige Bailey, AI Developer Relations Lead, Google DeepMind
• Lianna Whittleton, Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Together, they shared an inspiring and pragmatic conversation on:

• What it truly takes to drive transformative AI adoption inside large organizations
• How the legal and ethical frameworks are evolving alongside innovation
• Where AI is accelerating most rapidly in real-world development
• What kind of AI future we want to build over the next five years

The discussion revealed how deeply AI is beginning to reshape the workforce: from CEOs formally integrating agents into organizational structures to the rise of Agent Managers, leaders responsible for guiding and evaluating AI teammates in real time. Yet the hardest part isn’t deploying the technology; it’s helping organizations evolve around it. As the panelists noted, true success depends as much on change management as it does on innovation itself.

Each story and insight reminded us that the future of AI will be led by people who know how to connect technology with purpose.

A heartfelt thank-you to our panelists for bringing their candor, leadership, and vision to the room, and to everyone who joined us for a morning of caffeine, connection, and conversation.
We can’t wait to continue the dialogue next year.

Enjoy some pictures and a video recap of the event below - see you next year!