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In today’s workforce, there is a divisiveness around whether AI will benefit or harm jobs. Will it improve productivity? Or will it replace human beings?
What if it did both? And for the greater good?
Enter Sheila Lirio Marcelo. In 2006, Marcelo founded Care.com, an online platform that helps families find care for children, senior family members and more. The entrepreneur is coming through again, leveraging generative AI for families in need of caregiving assistance.
Ohai.ai, a human assistant app, is designed to reduce the cognitive load for the “chief household officer,” who is tasked with coordinating everyday life. The premise of the app was designed with multiple family constructs in mind—nuclear families, divorced families, and even families without children but in need of assistance to juggle it all.
Marcelo sat down with ADWEEK to share more about the inspiration that led her to start Care, the “social responsibilities” of a marketer, and the why behind Ohai’s mission to help solve today’s mental overload with a personal assistant accessible to all.
Her words have been edited for length and clarity.
The chief household officer
[My husband and I] were both raised Filipino. My husband was raised by a single mom, so he saw the strength of a working mom as a role model. My parents were equal partners as entrepreneurs—the Philippines has one of the narrowest gender gaps and has a lot of female leaders. I think that had a lot to do with our belief in equal partnership.
But we definitely felt the pressure around planning play dates. For example, he would often say, “Maybe you should call the other mom to plan the play date instead of me” because of stereotypes and expectations back then.
He and I shared [duties] in our early days caregiving for our kids that allowed me more space to care for my parents, and then as I progressed and started Care.com. We built it together, but then he took a primary role for the caregiving of our kids as they got older. We’ve always had an incredible partnership around that. I came to be the breadwinner eventually, but the family organizer for both of us. This is why I call [the role] the “chief household officer.” I may not necessarily be doing all the tasks, but I was the primary coordinator of the things that needed to be accomplished in our household.