The 8 Legs of Agency™

AI is the moment. Women’s agency is the mission.

The 8 Legs of Agency™ is a framework for building the capability, confidence, and power to shape your own life in an AI-shaped world. The goal is not simply to become good at AI. The goal is to have more choices.

Eight legs. One woman. Her life in her hands.

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A pink glitter octopus with eight connected arms, symbolising the Eight Legs of Agency

At the centre

Self-agency: I can act on my own life.

Technology

Use AI rather than have it happen to you.

Choices

Strengthen the leg that creates the biggest ripple.

Judgment

AI can help you think. It cannot decide what matters.

Community

Agency grows when women see women choosing.

Part one · Your private agency audit

Where does choice feel available today?

This is not a test of whether you are an empowered-enough woman. It is a private snapshot of where choice currently feels available to you. There is no perfect score, and your lowest score is not automatically the leg to work on first.

Private by default

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0 of 32 reflections rated · 0 of 8 legs complete

Leg 01 of 08

Economic Agency

In progress

I can earn, own, negotiate and make financial choices.

The question underneath it: Do I have meaningful power over the money in my life?

I understand the money flowing into and out of my life.

I can participate confidently in financial decisions that affect me.

I can name the value I create and ask to be paid appropriately for it.

I am building choices, not only meeting immediate obligations.

Read your octopus

Choose the leg that could make the biggest ripple.

Do not let a number decide for you. Look at the whole creature. Which leg already feels strong? Which feels tender, avoided, or expensive? Where are you genuinely constrained, and where have you stopped noticing that you still have a choice?

You do not need to fix all eight legs. You are looking for the one that could create movement everywhere else.

The leg I am choosing to explore:

The question I am holding

Do I have meaningful power over the money in my life?

Part two · Think with AI, not under it

Let AI expand your options. Keep your judgment in the centre.

AI can help you notice patterns, generate options, rehearse a conversation, or turn a vague desire into a practical experiment. It cannot decide what matters to you, tell you who to become, or erase the real constraints you need to respect.

Before you prompt

Do not paste confidential workplace information, identifiable personal details, health records, financial account information, or another person’s private story into a general AI tool. Ask for options, not a verdict. Challenge anything generic, biased, or unlike you.

Agency thinking partner prompt · Economic Agency

Act as my thoughtful agency coach and thinking partner.

I am exploring my Economic Agency. To me, this currently means [WHAT THIS AREA LOOKS OR FEELS LIKE IN MY LIFE].

The situation I want to examine is:
[DESCRIBE THE SITUATION WITHOUT INCLUDING PRIVATE OR IDENTIFYING INFORMATION]

What I want is:
[DESCRIBE THE OUTCOME, CHOICE OR FEELING YOU WANT MORE OF]

What seems to be getting in the way is:
[NAME ANY PRACTICAL BARRIERS, FEARS, HABITS OR UNCERTAINTY]

Help me separate:
1. Facts I know.
2. Assumptions I may be making.
3. Constraints I genuinely need to respect.
4. Choices or sources of power I may not be seeing.
5. One small, reversible experiment I could complete within seven days.

Do not make the decision for me. Ask me up to three sharp questions, one at a time, before offering your analysis. Be specific, candid and practical. If you detect that I am using more analysis to avoid action, say so clearly.

Additional focus for Economic Agency:
Help me identify where I may be underpricing, under-negotiating, financially avoiding or depending on a single option. Show me three ways to increase my choices without pretending my real constraints do not exist.

Part three · The 10% agency experiment

One small act can make a leg 10% stronger.

You do not need a total transformation. Make it small enough to complete, real enough to matter, and safe enough to teach you something. Your experiment is private until you choose otherwise.

The point is not to perform confidence. The point is to practise choosing.

My private experiment · Economic Agency

The 10% shift I wantThe action I will complete within seven daysWhen I will do itWhat might stop meWhat I will do when that happensThe evidence that I acted with greater agency will be

Part four · Bring it to the room

Agency grows when women see women choosing.

You can share the messy middle. You do not need to arrive as the woman who has mastered all eight legs. Use this reflection only if it feels helpful, then bring the support, idea, or accountability you would love from the BWAI community.

The 8 Legs of Agency™ manifesto

I am not here to become more efficient at abandoning myself.

I will use AI to extend my capability, not erase my judgment. I can learn without waiting to feel ready. I can belong without becoming smaller. I decide who I am becoming.