The GenAI Gender Gap

January 10, 2025

There is a gender gap when it comes to GenAI.

Just 26.3% of the European Union’s artificial intelligence (AI) professionals are women, according to a report from LinkedIn.

In my work with of the Women for Ethical AI (W4EAI) UNESCO platform, we had similar findings in our gender outlook study.

An AI-generated image of a group of women.

There are no easy solutions to this gap, but for those working in this area, some five concrete things you can do to promote gender inclusion (and equity in general) are:

  • 
Invite women into leadership roles, strategic planing for artificial intelligence and advanced technology.
  • Ensure that policies explicitly include women, girls, and other equity-deserving groups.
  • Invite women (and in particular, early career women and those who are precariously employed) to share and showcase their expertise and knowledge (and compensate them for their contributions).
  • Create formal sponsorship programs for women and girls who want to develop their knowledge and cp-competencies related to AI, with ongoing opportunities for learning and skill development.
An AI-generated image of a group of women.

There are a myriad of ethical complexities when it comes to artificial intelligence and gender is only one of them. Acknowledging inequalities and then working to support equity, fairness, and justice will remain ongoing work in the years to come.

References

AI in the EU: 2024 Trends and Insights from LinkedIn. (2024). https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/economicgraph/en-us/PDF/AI-in-the-EU-Report.pdf

United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2024). UNESCO Women for Ethical AI: Outlook study on artificial intelligence and gender. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000391719

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Sarah Elaine Eaton, PhD, is a Professor and Research Chair in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, Canada. Opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer. 

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Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.