Women are significantly less likely than men to experiment with generative AI.
But when you look closer, the explanation isn’t what many people assume.
In this International Women’s Day episode, Kim Fernandez examines the research behind the AI gender adoption gap and explores what may actually be driving it - from constraints, risks and workplace structures, to how women evaluate new technologies.
Importantly, this episode looks at what most businesses are overlooking: the largest productivity opportunities inside their own teams. Because the roles most capable of unlocking productivity with AI are often the roles women dominate.
For business leaders and women in the workplace, this conversation reframes the AI gender gap as something far more important than a technology trend - it’s a signal about how organisations introduce change, where adoption gaps and opportunities exist, and how the future of work will actually evolve.
In This Episode We Cover:
- The real reason behind the AI gender adoption gap
- Why the barrier to adoption is so nuanced
- How women evaluate AI
- Environments where women have statistically higher AI adoption than men
- The operational roles where AI productivity is highest
- What business leaders discover when AI unlocks capacity in teams
- Why the future of work is humans orchestrating + working alongside AI
- How AI adoption and representation impacts the future
Research Links:
Harvard Business School Digital Data Design Institute
The Gender Divide in Generative AI
https://d3.harvard.edu/the-gender-divide-in-generative-ai-a-global-challenge/
Economics Letters / Federal Reserve research on gender differences in generative AI use
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165176524002982
OECD Gender Data Portal — Time Use and Unpaid Work
https://www.oecd.org/gender/data/
International Labour Organization — Unpaid Care Work Statistics
https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_633135/lang--en/index.htm
Boston Consulting Group — Women in Tech & Generative AI Adoption
https://www.bcg.com/press/14may2024-women-leaders-in-tech-generative-ai-adoption
PNAS Nexus — Gender Differences in Attitudes Toward Artificial Intelligence
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/1/pgaf399
Sensity AI — Deepfake Abuse Statistics
https://www.sensity.ai/reports
Tools Mentioned
AI Profit Finder - designed to help organisations estimate where generative AI could unlock time and productivity across different roles. Free productivity and opportunity calculator: https://ai-collab.com.au/ai-profit-finder
AI Intensive - a transformational program that helps businesses identify AI productivity opportunities, implement role-based AI tools, and build safe, practical AI capability across their teams: https://ai-collab.com.au/ai-intensive
AI Collab: https://ai-collab.com.au
Kim Fernandez
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimfernandez
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimfernandez
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