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This Women’s Month, much of the conversation will focus on how women can access leadership and growth opportunities in an AI-driven economy. However, we must ensure that the skills and qualities that have historically allowed women to rise to the leaders they are today are not lost in the rush towards AI.
Deloitte’s legal sector surveys illustrate the speed of this transformation. In 2024, 76% of respondents reported no AI adoption. Just two years later, that figure has fallen to 2%, while 61% of respondents have reported actively deploying AI across legal work.
However, unlike previous technology rollouts, where organisations could clearly define use cases, processes and expected outcomes from the outset, AI adoption has been largely driven on a crowdsourcing basis. The technology has essentially been let loose, and employees have been encouraged to explore it for themselves, identify efficiencies and discover new ways of working as they go.
One of the risks associated with this approach is the uneven access to and take-up of these technologies, and the potentially detrimental impact on long-term career trajectories. While no definitive studies have yet identified why this occurs, anecdotal evidence and early-stage usage patterns suggest that advanced AI adoption may not be occurring uniformly across all groups, with some reports indicating lower levels of uptake among women.
