Part of an ongoing series exploring how women are experiencing the rise of AI in their work and personal lives.
Knowledge work has never been limited only by knowledge.
It's limited by everything wrapped around it: communication, administration, coordination, formatting, revisions, context switching, and hundreds of tiny decisions that slowly drain energy before the real work even begins.
AI is beginning to change that equation.
Not because it knows more than experts, but because it increasingly absorbs the work that experts were never uniquely qualified to do in the first place.
That's exactly where Pamela Wagner's experience stands out. As a founder, educator, and AI trainer, she isn't using AI to replace expertise. She's using it to remove everything that kept her expertise from moving as quickly as her ideas.
Meet the Interviewee
Pamela Wagner is the Founder and CEO of Ajala Digital, a Google Ads consultant, university lecturer, and corporate AI educator based in Austria. Alongside helping businesses grow through digital marketing, she trains organizations on practical AI adoption and leads initiatives focused on helping more women confidently build with AI.
The Interview
Before AI became widely adopted, how would you describe your work and daily responsibilities?
Before AI became widely adopted, my work was split between core expertise and operational friction. Running Ajala Digital and teaching Google Ads and global branding at Vienna and Hult, I delivered the same business outcomes I do now: measurable campaign results for clients and teaching students how to build effective strategies. But I spent enormous amounts of time on tasks that had nothing to do with actual expertise. Procrastinating on social media design, blog decoration, email writing. Either outsourcing these (expensive) or letting them slide (costly in other ways). I also struggled with written communication generally. Email etiquette, client correspondence. I was probably making a worse impression than I realized, losing potential partnerships in the process.
The other bottleneck was operational dependency. I kept switching developers because I couldn't communicate what I needed and couldn't make simple changes myself. Across both businesses, the pattern was the same: I had real expertise in my domains, but I was blocked by operational and communication gaps that had nothing to do with my skill. That friction also meant I had less mental space for the strategic thinking and connection work that actually required me.
How does AI currently intersect with your work or personal life?
AI solved my operational bottlenecks, hence allowed me to have more free time and do more of other things that I love as well. For example, just this month, I've started doing a TMJ (temporomandibular) massage course.
Email communication, content decoration, website management, social media graphics are all tasks that used to drain time and money are now handled efficiently. This freed capacity for what actually requires my expertise: client strategy, teaching at universities, and running various trainings and events. I've integrated AI workflows and tools into my Google Ads and global branding courses so students learn to work alongside these systems rather than compete with them. As a result, I am able to grow my business with fewer resources, in less time, and with an increased output for clients.
Professionally, I'm witnessing a different intersection through the hundreds of women and corporate teams I work with directly. I train 120 Salesforce executives annually and just delivered a keynote to roughly 1,000 Infineon employees on stress and trauma release. What I hear consistently from women is professional grief at watching skills they spent years mastering become commoditised, plus pressure to suddenly be AI-fluent on top of everything else. My work has evolved to help people process both the operational and identity impacts of this shift."
What AI tools, if any, do you regularly use?
Claude for writing and strategic thinking. Google's AI tools for research and content direction. Video editing and content automation platforms for production and scaling across different business funnels and needs. The stack is practical, not trendy.
Each tool solves a specific problem. Claude handles intellectual work, Google handles breadth and research, and the platform stack handles production scaling and may also change over time depending on business needs. It's about efficiency aligned to business outcome, not novelty."
Can you describe a specific moment when you realized AI was directly affecting your work, career, or personal life?
The first specific moment was using Claude to rewrite an email I would have otherwise agonized over for days. I'd normally second-guess myself, ask multiple people for advice, lose nerves. Claude did it in two minutes and captured what I meant better than I would have written it myself. That single experience shifted something fundamental: I realized a process I'd thought required human emotional judgment and days of deliberation could be cut down to 2 minutes without losing authenticity. That moment forever changed how I approached professional communication.
From there, I tested other apps. I had Claude impersonate Tony Robbins to coach me through business strategy problems, and it was genuinely better than his actual paid AI version. It helped me get strategic clarity fast, solve problems I'd usually procrastinate on, and bypass decision paralysis.
Lastly, as someone whose native language isn't English, AI has also been a practical tool for improving my writing quality, which directly elevates how clients and partners perceive my professionalism. The impact wasn't just about speed. It was about removing the psychological and linguistic friction that was limiting my actual effectiveness.
What was your initial reaction? Please explain why you experienced that emotion?
Excitement because the AI gave me something so much better I could've never thought of myself.
What has been the biggest positive impact AI has had on your life or work?
To produce more outcomes for our clients in less time and with less effort on my side, hence being able to grow the business more efficiently. As a result, I have more time for my mental and physical well-being.
What has been the biggest challenge, frustration, or downside?
Finding employees who are better at using AI than me!
Has AI changed how you think about your skills, value, creativity, or professional identity?
Yes, absolutely - AI is an expansion and an acceleration of the skills, value and creativity I bring to my work!
Have you ever felt pressure to learn or adapt to AI faster than you were comfortable with?
No. And, that's probably because I genuinely enjoy learning about and with it.
Have you experienced any situations where AI created unfairness, bias, exclusion, or unexpected opportunities?
Yes. On the mental health and psychology side, you have to be intentional about how you use AI. It can reinforce what you want to hear rather than challenge you. I use guardrails with Claude: be straight up, honest, push back on my thinking rather than validating it. That's a fairness issue. AI can become a mirror that only reflects what you want to see, which is dangerous when making decisions about wellbeing or identity.
The bigger unfairness I'm observing is structural. Through my event series ""Women Build with AI"" and my corporate training, women without built-in tech backgrounds are experiencing pressure to ""catch up"" to AI without the same resources or support that tech-adjacent roles have. There's also an unexpected opportunity flip side: some women who aren't traditionally trained in tech are more creative with AI because they're not constrained by conventional thinking. But that advantage only exists for those with time and access to experiment. The opportunity gap is real.
Do you think AI has affected expectations at work (productivity, speed, output, hiring, promotions, etc.)?
Absolutely. Through my corporate training with Salesforce and across companies like Infineon, I hear the same contradiction repeatedly: employees are expected to catch up with AI and become fluent in it. But IT blocks them. No access to tools, security restrictions, corporate policies preventing installation or experimentation. The expectation is "figure it out," but the infrastructure actively prevents it.
The result is fear instead of enablement. People get blocked from accessing tools, so they either don't learn or develop anxiety around AI rather than competence. There's a structural unfairness: companies demand adaptation but don't provide access or permission to actually adapt. I'm seeing this pattern across different industries and company sizes, and it's particularly damaging for women who are already experiencing pressure to "catch up" without the same mentorship or psychological safety."
What is one thing about AI that most people misunderstand?
That it is similar to social media: it's not going away, and almost everyone will have access to it. Whether it has a positive or negative effect on you depends entirely on how you choose to use it.
What advice would you give other women navigating AI's growing influence in their careers or lives?
Keep learning about it - it won't go away. And, keep asking questions. Whatever is stopping you is never a real reason anymore, because you've the world's knowledge at your hand to solve it.
Are you more optimistic or more concerned about AI's future impact? Why?
I'm optimistic because I believe people, especially women, can develop healthy, intentional relationships with AI if given the right support and permission to experiment. The tool isn't the problem. The structure around access and education is.
Complete this sentence: "AI has changed my life by __________."
...100% for the better.
Final Thoughts
One of the more interesting shifts AI may create isn't a world where humans work less. It may be a world where more people finally spend their time on the work they're uniquely qualified to do.
For years, expertise came bundled with dozens of unrelated responsibilities. The strategist also had to be the copy editor. The founder also had to be the designer. The consultant also had to manage every operational detail. AI is beginning to separate those layers.
Pamela's story suggests that the future may belong less to those who simply produce more, and more to those who understand where their real value lies. If AI can quietly remove the friction around that value, it doesn't diminish expertise. It gives it more room to matter.
Are you a woman using AI in your work, business, studies, or daily life? I'd love to hear your perspective. If AI has changed how you work, create, learn, lead, or think about your future, share your story in the comments. I'm always looking for new voices and would be happy to interview you for a future edition of this series.
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