Matriarchal AI Agents
- Mar 25
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 4
By Emily Richardson, Founder of KNWN.app
I am a tech founder working in the AI space calling into question the traditional hierarchical foundation on which AI agents are currently being built. The same hierarchical org chart popularized in the 1950s is being copied directly into code and called innovation. I see this moment as a point of inflection to change the system, not just recreate it. Those building agentic technology have benefited from that hierarchical system for decades. They have no reason to question the past as they build the future. We do.
As a result, I am building AI agents in a heterarchy, a horizontal power structure, centered around matriarchal values.
To question the foundation, one first must understand what is being built on it. Phase 1 of AI was chat. We fed it prompts, had conversations, but it had no real agency. Phase 2 is where the stakes change. AI agents can take autonomous action, make decisions, and complete tasks independently. This is the phase in which AI will have its biggest impact on the workforce.
As the world turns its focus to Phase 2, so does the money. Venture capital is flowing into agentic ventures, but most of that money is going to men.
"Over the past year, 75% of all venture capital went to all-male founding teams."
If the adage is true that tools reflect the hands that build them, these agents will simply reflect this new group of men in technology. This group has had no reason to question the organizational system that has worked for them since the industrial revolution.
When I started researching how to build my own agents, two things stood out. First, the vast majority of discourse was produced by men. Second, every single one was building the same org chart that exists in today's workforce – a CFO named Warren, a CTO named Elon – all framing it the same way: think of your AI agent as an employee, beneath you.
Hierarchy is not a neutral organizing principle. It is designed to concentrate power, not distribute it. It determines who leads by position, not knowledge, and enforces compliance through authority rather than earning it through trust.
Women and marginalized communities have lived inside this system our entire lives. We experience it by being passed over, locked out, and told to wait our turn in structures where the turn never comes.
Creating my own AI agents gave me the opportunity to step outside of that and ask: what would my ideal system actually look like? If I had the power to rethink work structure and culture, what would I build?
After extensive research, I found that my answer is a heterarchy that follows matriarchal values. I have been implementing this system to scale my business, KNWN, an AI visibility platform, and as a result I can focus on building the business instead of just running it.
In practice, my agentic system is called The Council, five AI stewards running my business operations in a flat structure, guided by a value system that prioritizes distributed authority, consent before action, and transparency over assumptions.
Haven owns customer success and product.
Quill owns content.
Chase owns revenue and sales.
Wit is the memory keeper and maintains a shared knowledge base
Cove handles coordination, moving information between stewards
Distributed authority means intelligence moves freely and I am never the bottleneck. In a traditional hierarchical agent system, a client hitting a milestone gets escalated up the chain and waits. In The Council, nobody decides. It just moves. Wit sweeps it into shared memory. Chase picks it up as a live proof point for outreach. Quill starts drafting a case study. Each steward figures out what to do with that information on its own, without me in the loop and without anything telling it what to do.
Though I call it an agentic matriarchy, my stewards are not gendered. The name reflects a value system and a communication style. Every steward operates using needs-based communication: observation, feeling, need, request. There are no demands, no directives, and no chain of command.
Equality is at the center of this system, and as a byproduct of that decision I am inherently building toward a more equal future. The ethics embedded into these agents determine how they communicate, how they prioritize, and how they act. It is possible to build something better. AI agents can be built to operate in alignment with your values, not against them.
However, this is not an individual pursuit. Those currently driving the tech ecosystem are not stopping to ask who is getting left out. They are moving forward and locking defaults into place without question. We have the power to be the voice that questions this and to build a more equitable future. So let's start building!
Emily Richardson is the founder of KNWN, an AI search visibility platform for brands and agencies. With a background in sociology, she approaches emerging technology through a human-systems lens, exploring how AI reshapes power, access, and opportunity. She shares her work through talks, events, and short-form content, and is building toward a future where that technology is designed with equity at its foundation.