Why Fewer Women Are Using AI (And Why This Is A Problem)

Let me ask you an honest question.

Think about the people in your life who you know are using AI regularly. Who uses ChatGPT at work? Who's got Claude open in a tab right now? Who keeps banging on about their favourite tool or new workflow?

How many of them are women?

For me, hardly any. There’s my husband and his new vibe coded app. My crypto-bro friend who has discovered Lovable. That drunk guy I met who said he was an “AI Consultant” but then confessed he just knows how to install ChatGPT

(Even my Dad is using Gemini to help install the new downstairs shower.)

Maybe, I thought, it’s just me and my friends who aren’t fan-girling over AI right now. Maybe I am taking my own experience and falsely stretching it to the big old world.

But…nope. It turns out, I was right. 

Harvard conducted a study in 2025 and the result is in: 

Women are using generative AI significantly less than men. Everywhere. Across all regions, all jobs, all sectors.

Not a little bit less. A lot less.

So…now that I know I am right (sad hurrah) let’s look at the cold hard facts and most importantly, WHY this is happening.

(I will be analysing this paper which pulled together data from 18 different studies. Students, workers, entrepreneurs, scientists, postdocs. People in the US, Kenya, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Australia. Dated from 2025) 

The results of the study show clearly:

Men are more likely to use generative AI than women.

A few stats from the research just to be sure:

As of the paper released in 2025, 70% of people using Claude right now are men.

I’m not exactly shocked but I am a little depressed by that.

As a woman, I have my own opinion here on why this might be.

For me, the main reason that I struggled to get into AI, was because I was so tired of all the annoying AI content that was being thrown at me every time I went on my phone.

I began to associate AI with a feeling of dread, FOMO and secondhand embarassment.

Looking at a real research paper, I wondered if this would back up my own personal thoughts.

Thinking on a global scale, I wondered also about education and access:

“Maybe women in other parts of the world don’t have access to the tools or the education needed to work them”.

But it turns out that this isn’t the problem.

They ran a study with over 17,000 people in Kenya, where they gave everyone - men and women equally - the opportunity to learn how to use ChatGPT. Completely equal access.

The women were still less likely to use it.

The plot thickens…

So it's not just about access or education. 

What is it then?

Women consistently report knowing less about AI tools than men do. 

This actually circles back to the question I asked earlier. Who do you know who is using AI tools right now?

AI tools and “check out this cool thing I am doing” stories generally spread through networks. Networks can be professional but also just mates chatting about stuff. 

Women are often less represented in the professional and social circles where AI gets talked about and shared.

So basically, if nobody in your immediate circle is using AI and raving about it, you're less likely to try it yourself. 

Ah yes…that old thing.

This one didn’t surprise me too much. 

Multiple studies found that women have lower confidence in their ability to use AI tools effectively. 

Yep. That makes sense. 

It is so frustrating but yes, women tend to have lower confidence about everything compared to me. 

Do you know the one about job applications? Women need to match 90% of the qualities listed before they will apply. For men, it’s much lower.

(don’t ask me for the source for that one, I know it’s somewhere though)

Men were also more persistent, meaning when the AI gave them a rubbish answer, they tried again. Women were more likely to just give up and do it themselves.

One study also found that women were more likely to say they'd need training before they could benefit from AI, while men just... cracked on without it. 

So confidence is holding women back. 

Again.

This one was interesting to me.

Women are significantly more likely than men to feel that using AI on coursework or assignments is equivalent to cheating. 

They're more concerned about the ethics of it and whether or not it’s “right” to use AI to get ahead.

Now, I'm not saying that's a bad quality to have. Honestly, that kind of thoughtfulness is probably a good thing for AI development overall.

But it does mean women are holding themselves back from a tool that their male counterparts are cheerfully using without a second thought.

Probably the most important question to ask.

Why does it even matter?

Why even bother trying to get more women interested in AI?

AI systems learn from the people who use them. They get better, more relevant, more useful, based on who is prompting them, what those people are asking about, and what feedback they give.

If the people using AI are overwhelmingly male, then the AI gets trained mostly on what men need, what men ask, what men care about.

(Stuff my German husband cares about that I don’t just for example: drones, heights of tall buildings, types of fast speed trains and what Berlin must have been like in the 90s) 

And this creates a knock on effect, where the AI becomes less useful for women. Which makes women less likely to use it. Which makes the AI even more male-skewed. Which makes women less likely to use it…

And why do we need women using AI anyway? 

Because without AI, women risk falling behind in the workplace. We risk losing out on top jobs, jobs where important decisions are being made. 

Watch any film from the 80s where the board room is full of cigar smoking, old, white men for a scary idea of where that might lead us.

I really believe (and the research backs me up) that a huge part of gender equality is having women working and active in the field of AI.

Sadly, there is no “one solution to rule them all”.

Like most things today, this is a complex and not easily solved problem.

What the research does tell us, is that just giving women access isn't enough. The gap is social, cultural, and institutional. It's about confidence, community, and deeply ingrained beliefs about what's "for us" and what isn't.

(Stuff which doesn’t just apply to AI by the way, but tech generally)

Which is, somewhat conveniently, exactly why I started this channel.

Not because I think I have all the answers, because I can assure you there are times when I am absolutely clueless and doubting whether I even have the right to make these posts. 

But because one of the things the research suggests helps is familiarity and community. 

Seeing people like you using these tools. Normalising the learning process. Making it feel less like a boys' club and a bit more like just... a normal thing to do.

So if you're a woman reading this, and you haven't tried any of these AI tools yet: please just give it a go. 

It's allowed. You're not cheating. You don’t need to work in tech. You don't need to fully understand it before you start. 

(And I am saying this as someone who usually has to complete 5 training courses before I will even start a task to do with something new)

It’s not about forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do.

It’s about realising that AI is going to be important in the future and if we don’t watch out, we are going to find ourselves left out of the conversation and falling behind.

Everyone should have a seat at the table.

The most important bits from this post: