News Release: Areto Founder Wins Global Award for AI + Safety
Chief Product Officer Jacqueline Comer wins inaugural She Shapes AI Award for AI + Safety as Areto platform tracks 27.6M comments and actions over 1M harmful interactions
April 20, 2026, Auckland / Edmonton — Areto founder and Chief Product Officer Jacqueline Comer has been awarded the inaugural She Shapes AI Global Award for AI + Safety, announced on Thursday at the She Shapes AI Conference in London.
The She Shapes AI Global Council recognised Comer for her leadership and long‑term contributions to AI safety, including the creation of the world’s first Global Hate Speech Index for Sport and pioneering research into microaggression detection and bias in AI systems. Her early analysis of ParityBOT data in 2020 revealed that mainstream AI models were missing microaggressions entirely, prompting the development of Areto’s Microaggressions Detection Model (MAMO) and shaping the company’s responsible‑AI framework.
Areto protects brands and communities from digital harms including abuse, hate speech, scams, spam and pirated content. Proven in some of the world’s highest‑volume sports environments, Areto now supports organisations across sport, entertainment, publishing and government — ensuring harmful content is caught early and acted on quickly.
Comer also leads Face Forward, a free two‑year Areto initiative providing real‑time social‑media protection to women and gender‑diverse people in public life across New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific. The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at the Australian National University is conducting independent research evaluating Areto as a policy‑relevant solution.
A case‑study report featuring former Wellington Mayor Tory Whānau and former Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek will be released the week of Women Deliver in Melbourne in late April.
