Women in AI: Caution, AI crossing

Women continue to lag behind men in AI adoption, according to Harvard Business School research.
Women are more exposed to AI-driven job disruption, World Economic Forum and LinkedIn research finds.
Access to AI skills remains unequal with Randstad finding 71% of AI-skilled workers are men and only 29% are women.
Women face a greater stigma for using AI at work, says Harvard Business Review research.
Experts argue that inclusive AI training is essential for economic growth with deliberate, hands-on training to ensure women are not excluded from AI’s projected multi-trillion-dollar economic impact. *

Women are not adopting AI at the same rate as men. A Harvard Business School paper found that the gap between the adoption rate of AI was 22% at 47.8% for men and 39.4% for women. That gap has shrunk to 16%, but frictions within organisations and society are keeping it open[1].

The pattern holds across income levels, education and occupation, which means that really the gap isn’t necessarily caused by ability but rather by access and perception.

The problem is that the roles most likely to be affected by AI are the ones most often held by women. The World Economic Forum, in partnership with LinkedIn found that women make up 57% of the roles that are likely to be disrupted by AI compared with 43% of men – they tend to be in roles that AI augments rather than replaces[2].

Access to tools

At the same time, women don’t get as much access to the tools that could help them adapt. A Randstad survey showed that 71% of AI-skilled workers are man and only 29% are women. It’s not just gender, it’s also age – 22% of baby boomers have been offered AI skills training [3].

The flip side of access is need. Women are less likely to use AI because it ‘feels like cheating’ and many do not see it as a valuable collaborator. Then there’s the fact that if women are found to be using AI they are judged more harshly than their male counterparts.

A study published in Harvard Business Review found that engineers believed to have used AI were rated about 9% less competent for identical work, and the penalty was worse for women at 14% than men (6%)[4].

Perception and value

It’s not confidence that’s making them less inclined to immerse themselves in the technology, it’s perception and value. And it needs to change because the economic impact of neglecting 49.7% of the world’s population at a time of profound economic change is significant.

A Women at the Table analysis for the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development found that while AI is projected to generate nearly $20 trillion in global economic gains by 2030, those gains are structurally constrained because women hold just 31% of jobs at major AI companies and one-third of AI research roles, with systematic exclusion from datasets and design processes correlating with measurable performance failures[5].

AI adoption strategist Mara Bolis has said that there is a risk of creating a ‘two-tiered AI economy if we don’t engage women more actively’[6].

AI as a communication skill

AI tools are widely assumed to be technical and suited to people who are technically confident. In practice, getting reliable results from these systems is a matter of language and closer to a good briefing and good writing to coding.

AI use needs to be taught as a communication skill to remove the sense of intimidation that is affecting women in the workplace. Almost everyone started from the same position of not knowing how to use AI, which means there is still plenty of room for women to catch up.

Simply providing access doesn’t close the gap. If tools are made available but men are encouraged to use them more, the confident grow more confident. Effective training is deliberate and inclusive by design, bringing women in to the AI fold and using hands-on practice with a clear framework for building and checking prompts.

AI the enabler

There is a version that works in women’s favour. Hesitation to adopt, as Bolis pointed out, is also an awareness of risk and a need for governance and ethics in AI. Paired with genuine fluency that judgement is exactly what organisations need as AI moved deeper into their systems and operations.

Those that treat AI training as an inclusive and ongoing investment will be able to keep and advance their talent instead of watching old inequities being rebuilt into the way work is done next.

Across all industries, from the PR agency to the corporate to the SME, AI can be an enabler that drives growth, it just needs to be more accessible. And that means removing the barriers to entry and showing everyone – women and men – how to benefit from its potential.

* Summary created by AI

Tamryn Geldenhuys is a reputation strategist at Lemon Sorbet Marketing, and Tamsin Mackay is an AI-fluent content, strategy and PR practitioner.