AI Needs Women’s Voices: Powering Equality in the Digital Workplace
On International Women’s Day, Prof Daphne Pillay-Naidoo argues that giving women authority in shaping AI is the key to gaining fairer, more inclusive professions.
In 2025, the World Economic Forum reported that it would take 2,158 years to achieve Planet 50/50, which was described as a gender-equal planet. A year later, and that statistic remains relatively unchanged, except there is one critical element that has escaped sustained scrutiny, even as it steadily transforms the future of work and could either shorten or prolong the projected 133-year wait for gender equality.
That element is the rapid, growing integration of Artificial Intelligence and technology in the workplace.
Comparative data indicate that in 2025, 78% of global companies had incorporated AI into at least one business function. In January 2026, this percentage rose to 91%, indicating a 17% increase in AI adoption across at least one business function within organisations worldwide. At this rate, it is expected that by 2027, 75% of all organisations worldwide will incorporate AI in most of their business operations.
This rapid digitisation has forced scholars in gender studies to deliberate on a crucial question. As Artificial Intelligence reshapes our workplaces, will it widen gender inequality, or will it create new pathways to achieving a gender-equal workplace?
With the theme for the 2026 International Women’s Day being “Give to Gain”, the question that arises is, “What power, inclusion and accountability must be given in shaping AI systems in the workplace and what could we gain for gender equality in return?”
At face value, many may see the introduction of AI into professions as nothing more than a technological innovation. However, its integration in the employment sector has profound socio-technical implications, as it shapes and interacts with existing social structures, norms and inequalities in the workplace.
These existing social structures, norms and inequalities have, for a long time, oppressed women and contributed to the lack of gender equality in many professions, especially at strategic and leadership levels. The intersection of gender and AI represents a striking contrast for gender equality.
This intersection could symbolise extraordinary promise or an additional threat. AI within professions holds the potential to become a powerful tool for gender equality, empowering women through expanding access to education, improving women’s participation in the workforce and increasing economic opportunity. However, if it is designed and adopted without specific attention to gender dynamics, AI will simply reproduce historical gender inequalities, embedding them more deeply into the new systems that will become woven into the future. The outcome we are faced with is a result of the choice we make now.
To establish AI as a catalyst for gender equality, we need to ensure that we design, apply, and govern AI in ways that dismantle inequality and gender bias rather than automate it.
As we approach International Women’s Day, we advocate for equal rights and justice for women and girls worldwide. This forces us to ask, if we are to “Give to Gain”, what must we give women in shaping AI in the workplace, and what might we gain in return?
Statistics on the gender composition of AI employees worldwide indicate that women are grossly underrepresented in this field, comprising only 22% of AI professionals and holding less than 14% of senior positions in AI. But why is this important, and what are the implications of female underrepresentation in the AI sector?
AI systems are a product of the questions developers ask, the issues they prioritise, and the datasets they use to train them. When there is a lack of gender parity in teams responsible for the design, application, and governance of AI, the systems produced are shaped by narrow perspectives, leading to a lack of representation of women’s experiences and to systems trained on historically biased datasets. This bias becomes embedded in technology and AI systems, which are scaled across institutions and societies.
However, when women are given authority and influence over the design and application of AI systems, their representation transforms from tokenism to meaningful power. Their voices and experiences become embedded in these systems, increasing the likelihood that gender bias is identified and corrected and that diverse realities are recognised, resulting in more accountable, inclusive, and legitimate systems.
In this regard, giving women representation, influence, and authority in AI system design and implementation is not just a concession; it is an act of fairness. It allows us to renegotiate whose stories are heard and legitimised and whose intelligence shapes our future.
Giving women equal representation and influence in AI governance and oversight is critical to ensure accountable and ethical AI systems. While governance dictates who sets the rules and whose values guide the adoption of AI systems, oversight ensures that these systems are implemented in a fair, ethical and transparent manner. Ensuring women are represented in these spaces provides avenues for redress and increases the possibility that inequality and bias are identified and addressed before they are legitimised in institutions and societies. This creates accountable and ethical AI systems that dismantle inequality.
The reality is that AI is here to stay. It is not on the verge of being embedded within professions; it already is. The burning question is: will we allow it to reproduce existing inequalities, or will we redirect and reshape its influence on gender equality? If we advocate for and strive to ensure women have equal authority and influence in the development, deployment, governance, and oversight of AI systems, we will be able to harness AI as a powerful engine for change.
The GAP project on Gender and AI in professions, which I am currently working on, confronts this reality directly, investigating how AI is reshaping professional spaces and asking a very pertinent question: “How can we ensure that this transformation advances rather than undermines gender equality?”
On this international women’s day under the banner “Give to Gain” the message is clear. If we give women equal authority, influence and representation in shaping AI, we not only gain more inclusive systems but fairer professions. In doing so, we may shorten the fight for gender inequality and move a step closer to fair and just workspaces.
Prof Daphne Pillay-Naidoo is an Associate Professor of Industrial Psychology in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Pretoria.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Pretoria.