‘Reese is right’: The AI skills gender gap is real

“It’s actually a horribly accurate concern,” said Dr. Mary Noble-Tolla, Director of Research and Content at Lean In, referring to the risk women face in the AI transition. “If women don’t really accelerate their learning of AI, then all of the gender gaps that we definitely see will start to get worse, not better.”

A growing body of research supports this concern and suggests that women face a double risk in the AI era. They’re more likely to work in roles being reshaped by generative AI, yet less likely than men to use AI tools regularly at work.

Last year, the United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) reported that women in high-income countries are nearly three times more likely than men to work in jobs with the highest exposure to generative AI automation. It said that 9.6% of female employment falls into the top-risk category, compared with 3.5% for men, underscoring how unevenly disruption could be felt as AI spreads through the workforce.

In the U.S., recent research from Brookings found that 6.1 million workers are in occupations with both high AI exposure and low capacity to adapt to job displacement. Of those workers, 86% are women, with many concentrated in clerical and administrative roles.

At the same time, Lean In research reported that men are 22% more likely to use AI daily at work, making them more likely to become early “power users” of the technology.