Can AI Be a Catalyst for Gender Equity in the Workforce?

In this article:

• Building Digital Literacy
• Investing in Human-Centric Skills
• Fostering Trust and Transparency
• Embracing Diverse Perspectives

When we talk about the impact of AI on our workforce, the conversation tends to steer towards  productivity and efficiency. How can we elevate our workforce to be more strategic, and let AI agents (or digital employees) complete the mundane tasks? How can we augment the skills of our employees, so they are ready for whatever the future may bring?

These are important conversations. But something that is not often discussed is the impact of AI on gender inequity. Not only the risk of displacement (the United Nations Gender Snapshot 2025 points out that 9.6% of women's jobs in high-income countries face the highest automation risk, nearly three times the share for men), but also the opportunities it presents.

I recently joined Rianne Van Veldhuizen (AWS) and Melanie Evans (IBM) in a panel discussion on this topic, at an event hosted by Chief Executive Women (CEW). This conversation underscored my opinion that AI is the single greatest opportunity we have to dismantle traditional barriers and drive true gender equity. Here's how we can get started today.

Building Digital Literacy

The Hays 2025 Skills Report reveals that 87% of jobs in Australia now demand digital literacy skills, and our own research shows they are the number one skill that organisations need to accomplish their future goals. This is particularly important as AI begins to move away from being 'owned' by IT and becomes deeply embedded in everybody's role.

In our CEW panel discussion, Evans pointed out that building digital literacy requires continuous upskilling. She said everyone should be thinking about how much education they need each week, and put aside that time to improve their digital literacy and AI skills — not as one-off training, but ongoing experimentation and professional development.

I wholeheartedly agree, and believe that hiring for skills (instead of university degrees or years of experience) can also help eliminate biases and open the door to a truly diverse workforce.

I've seen this play out first hand. Once Workday transitioned to a skills-based organisation, our diversity metrics changed to 57.6% men and 42.3% women within two years. LinkedIn research also supports this, showing that skills-based hiring generally increases the proportion of women in talent pools by 24% in jobs where they are traditionally underrepresented.

Van Veldhuizen explained that in recent years, there has been a shift in the perception of who 'belongs' in a tech-enabled role. Now, someone in finance can build an AI agent. Someone in customer experience can use GenAI to identify trends. By building digital literacy, we can give our workforce access to more opportunities than ever before.

Investing in Human-Centric Skills

As AI takes on more of our daily tasks, we have an opportunity to shift to more strategic work and spend more time with our teams. This requires uniquely human capabilities like empathy, conflict resolution and critical thinking. As a CHRO, nurturing these skills in employees will likely become a greater focus in the years ahead.

Can AI help here? Of course. At Workday, we have an AI-powered coaching tool that helps managers prepare for sensitive conversations and enhance their leadership skills. I've used it many times, by role playing before a meeting or presentation, and thinking about how I can improve my approach.

Van Veldhuizen shared how she uses AI to communicate more clearly in English (given it's not her first language) and share technical messaging in a way that resonates with the CEO.

Just as AI can elevate our human strengths, it can also help us mitigate our weaknesses. Tendencies that are not always productive — like impulsive decision making, confirmation bias and promotions based on 'vibes' instead of performance — are all ways we can use AI to make sure we are keeping our biases in check, without compromising results.

The more we invest in nurturing our own and our employees' emotional intelligence and so-called 'soft' skills — which research shows women are more effective at deploying in the workplace than men — the more we can empower women to step into leadership roles and drive gender equity at all levels of the organisation.

Fostering Trust and Transparency

One of the key barriers to AI adoption is trust. Women are adopting generative AI technology at a significantly lower rate than men — in many cases because women question whether it's ethical to use the tools. As AI becomes a core competency in the workplace, this is likely to have a significant impact on their career opportunities and the gender pay gap more broadly.

As leaders, we need to encourage women to lean into AI and understand its vast benefits, while also making sure we are building trust and ethics into our AI systems. A lot of this comes down to being confident in the data that the AI draws from. If you can't trust your data, you can't trust your AI outcomes.

In our panel discussion, we spoke about whether organisations should disclose their use of AI and the result was unanimous: being transparent about AI use is critical to building trust. By ensuring systems are visibility, auditable and transparent with a 'human in the loop' on key decisions, we can stifle the fear around AI and encourage women to embrace it in their role.

This also need to happen at an executive level. Evans highlighted the responsibilities that Boards now have to 'pressure test' AI systems and challenge their outputs. By ensuring proper oversight and governance, we can foster a culture of trust at all levels of the organisation and ensure that women are not squandering opportunities to elevate their potential.

Embracing Diverse Perspectives

If we want our organisations to be truly AI-powered and future-ready, we need leadership teams that are truly diverse. Women have historically been underrepresented in AI leadership roles, yet gender equity is critical for making sure we build AI that works fairly for every market and every person.

We can use AI to close the pay gap and identify top talent in our organisations, but it's up to us to embrace diversity and nurture the next generation of women leaders.

As Lisa Annese, Chief Executive of CEW said at the conclusion of our panel discussion, the value of AI is not in replacing jobs, but in opening doors to people in non-STEM backgrounds to participate meaningfully in the economy. We need women and men designing the future together, unleashing their potential to break down barriers and create greater inclusion.

To move forward together and solve real-world problems, we must lead AI adoption and digital transformation with equity as a key objective. Because the decisions we make today will define the composition and success of our future workforce. And if we're successful, we will not only manage a powerful technological shift, but architect a fundamentally more inclusive future.