The writer is FT Working It editor and author of ‘The Future-Proof Career’
Women are more likely than men to be in jobs at risk of being automated, but are also 25 per cent less likely than men to have basic digital skills, separate studies show.
The findings, from the International Labour Organization and the UN respectively, highlight an urgent challenge for women across the world. The artificial intelligence-driven industrial revolution ought to offer a unique opportunity for everyone to shape the future of work, but many women are already behind.
A 2024 Danish study of 100,000 workers found “a staggering gender gap in the adoption of [OpenAI chatbot] ChatGPT: women are 20 percentage points less likely to use ChatGPT than men in the same occupation”. The researchers found the gap persisted when people in the same workplaces were compared, and when the study controlled for different task mixes.
So how can women keep up with AI developments — especially those who might feel too busy to take time off for training within a part-time schedule, or who may be in denial about AI’s all-consuming importance? The challenges are understandable: it is hard to know where to start.
