Janis FontaineCaitlen Macias combines her passion for service with AI tools and training.
Caitlin Macias knows most organizations hear the words “artificial intelligence” and feel either hype or dread.
Macias, 28, of West Palm Beach, founded her own company, the playfully named BotQueen, in 2024, to train nonprofits to use AI.
Nonprofits are turning to Macias to demystify AI. In the past two years, she’s consulted with dozens of groups in Palm Beach County on how to use AI. “I do training, one-on-one coaching, and consulting, and now, we’re building AI agents, AI chats, full-scale apps related to AI.”
Charlee Nolan, chief marketing and communications officer at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, connected with Macias through the Norton’s partnership with the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County. The Cultural Council hosted a free workshop where Macias spoke, and Nolan said, “We were just very impressed with her.”
After a formal meeting, the Norton and the BotQueen came up with a plan.
Through their connection to the BotQueen, Nolan feels like she has access to the latest information. “Technology moves very rapidly, and we don’t think it would be wise to bury our heads in the sand.”
Macias has become a paid speaker at AI conferences nationally and she publishes a newsletter, AI for Impact, on her LinkedIn page that helps readers keep tabs on changes in this evolving technology.
About 94% of companies worldwide (and 100% of Fortune 500 companies) use AI for at least one operation, according to Resourcera.
But Macias’ interest runs deeper: “I want to talk not just about AI but about being a female entrepreneur and what it means to start your own business. I want to tell other entrepreneurs that the doors didn’t just open for me. They opened because I knocked.”
An early start
Macias’ parents fled Mexico City for Miami in the late 1990s, displaced by civil and political unrest. Her father, Scott Macias, an electrical engineer who worked for Motorola and Qualcomm, found work in South Florida. Her mother, Ana Hentze, had been a successful architect building shopping centers and department stores in Mexico.
When Macias was 3, the family moved to Boca Raton and enrolled her in a Montessori program that fostered her creative spirit and fed her curiosity. “Montessori teaches you independent learning and critical thinking,” Macias said.
She started her first business at age 11, hand-sewing socks into toy monkeys that she sold at a local toy store. By the time she was in high school at Grandview Preparatory in Boca Raton, she was focused on starting a nonprofit.
“A big part of my passion is helping women,” Macias said.
She found the perfect partner when the Philanthropy Tank, a local nonprofit program, introduced its new entrepreneurial program. Macias and five other students (including her sister Sigi Macias, Andrea Lacher, Katie Berlatsky, Eva Oliveri and Sydney Sloan) started Equal & Empowered, an organization committed to promoting equality through education.
The nonprofit earned a $9,500 grant from The Tank, which was used to hold local, teen-focused events on women’s issues such as the wage gap, domestic violence, workplace discrimination and self-confidence. It also published a book of essays, poems and art by students inspired by feminism.
Through the Philanthropy Tank, Macias met her mentor, Palm Beach philanthropist Julie Fisher Cummings, a former chair of the board of directors for the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties. Cummings co-founded the Lovelight Foundation to fight domestic child sex trafficking and promote underserved women and girls through education and support.
After high school, Macias earned a degree in sociology from Virginia’s William & Mary and a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University in New York City. She returned to Palm Beach County, where she joined forces with different nonprofits and served as Cummings’ personal assistant, learning to navigate the world of the wealthy donors who are the lifeblood of local charities.
The BotQueen is born
At the same time, curious about AI, she began exploring its applications in the nonprofit arena. Nonprofits had problems like staff shortages and difficult data analysis that AI could solve, she said. Macias knew AI, properly used, could help nonprofits thrive, so she created BotQueen.ai to bring suitable technology to them.
“I’m basically a workflow and operational consultant with knowledge of AI,” Macias said, “and I want to help nonprofits think about it intentionally.”
Macias works with Nonprofits First to advise the organization on using AI safely. She also connects with its 250 members through monthly forums on AI, said Trudy Crowetz, CEO of the West Palm-based nonprofit that helps other nonprofits.
“Her knowledge of the subject is just unprecedented, and we appreciate that she’s helping other nonprofits with their journey to the AI world, because in essence, she’s helping us achieve our mission by doing that.”
Macias was also a featured speaker at the AI summit Nonprofits First offered at Palm Beach State College in May 2025. Her philanthropy journey is well-known, Crowetz said.
“She’s a superstar in our sector,” Crowetz told Stet News.
Big mistakes
The biggest mistake small businesses and nonprofits make is trying to “cheap out,” Macias said.
“You can’t make a professional-looking cake using an Easy-Bake Oven. Bite the bullet. Spend the money for a customized product that really works for your business.”
“After not spending the money, not getting the proper training and not putting together a robust AI policy are the second- and third-biggest mistakes companies make,” she said.
Many companies have little or no governance structure in place for using AI.
“Make sure you keep a human in the loop,” Macias added. She coined the acronym HITL, for Human in the Loop, as a reminder.
“AI is a tool. You should still be authoring and producing and taking accountability for the content that you send out to people. If you’re going to be using AI to generate anything, whether it’s an image or content, make sure that you’re reading it over before you send it, or giving it to a colleague or a coworker to review.”
AI is not infallible, Macias said. Everyone has heard the saying, “garbage in, garbage out.” AI repeats information it has been taught, even if it’s wrong. Double-check, she said.
It’s also a “yes man,” Macias said, telling you what it thinks you want to hear. Question it, Macias recommends.
And it’s subject to hallucinations — AI sometimes makes up information that sounds plausible but is factually incorrect. Set guidelines, Macias adds.
Macias said her business helps nonprofits avoid these road hazards on the AI superhighway by integrating the right AI product. one equipped with the necessary guardrails and caution signs.
Knowing that setting AI policies and establishing secure practices are growing fields, Macias joined forces with Chase Fopiano, who has 20 years of law enforcement experience in cybersecurity and digital investigations and is the chief technology officer for the founding chapter of the Global Council for Responsible AI.
“Chase is a leader in responsible AI and an ex-cybersecurity detective who has helped organizations build their AI policies. I haven’t had a lot of male mentors in my life, but he’s someone that I really trust and admire,” Macias said.
Lean on others
Choosing good mentors and collaborators has been key to her success. Don’t try to do it all alone, she said.
“My advice to other female founders in the tech space is to lean on other people.”
She leans on her business partners, Javier Sanchez and Thomas Nguyen, who built their first custom AI chatbots in 2024 for a few local clients, Macias said. The company, called BeeNex, is an AI diagnostic and development studio specializing in cybersecurity that builds custom products and fine-tunes them for clients.
With another partner, Vicki Pugh, Macias developed an AI-powered fundraising program for nonprofit professionals with coaching sessions, a prompt guide, tips on data analysis and expert insights.
In July, Youth for Responsible AI recruited Macias to collaborate with young adults from Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas on a new project. “I’ll be working with young people around the world to create an AI literacy toolkit that we’re going to bring to schools,” Macias said.
Helping people, mentoring youth and encouraging young, female businesswomen to enter the tech space, “is my passion. I feel that is my legacy.”
