When it comes to AI and women in the workforce, is the technology going to drive more disparities, or open up opportunities? That’s the question a new AI Leadership Council is looking to proactively address. 

Comprised of business, tech, academic, public policy and workforce transformation leaders—including from Microsoft and Harvard University—the council is an effort to uncover where there are gaps that could lead to women being left behind during tech advancement and formulate practical strategies to help HR close such chasms.

“The story we tend to hear about women and technology is one wherein women are usually cast as the losers. They fall behind, are left out of jobs and opportunities, and are victims of bias,” says Dr. Ginna Santy, executive director of Women in Revenue and co-chair of the new AI Leadership Council. “We’re starting to see the same thing happen to women with AI. The most common narrative is that women will be disproportionately displaced by AI in the workforce.” 

To change the narrative, HR needs to first know how AI is affecting women’s jobs, what training and access to tools looks like and who is being selected to lead AI initiatives, Santy says.

“Without that information,” she says, “organizations cannot know whether AI is expanding opportunity or reinforcing existing inequities.”

See also: AI hiring tools can invent their own bias, research says

Apart from gathering data about the state of AI and women in the workforce, the council aims to identify practical frameworks: inclusive leadership models that involve pairing tech leaders with women leaders; targeted efforts to give women more decision-making over AI strategy and implementation; sponsorship programs that give women more say in and opportunity around AI projects.

“Why does it have to follow the same old story? Instead, why can’t we push ourselves to see AI as a great opportunity for women?” Santy says.

While AI is advancing quickly, seemingly by the day, “we are early enough in the AI journey that ‘could be’ is a productive, inventive phrase, rife with possibility,” she says. “But it won’t do anything for us if the questions aren’t being asked. That’s the gap we are seeking to fill.”

Santy recently spoke with HR Executive about the council’s vision, and what HR leaders should be doing today to make AI a “great equalizer” instead of a divider.

HRE: How do you intend to measure what success looks like in the Council’s future?

Santy: Success looks like things that exist in the world now, not things we said. It includes frameworks people can pick up and use, new definitions of what leadership looks like when the routine work is automated, developmental models that don’t assume a career ladder built for 1985, sponsorship playbooks that put real weight behind the women coming up. In the first year, we want those in the hands of the HR leaders and policymakers making decisions right now. Beyond that, we will look at whether organizations are actually building AI strategy differently because of what we found. We’ll know it worked when we start hearing our questions asked back to us by people who never heard of this Council.

HRE: You’ve called this council possibly the last real opportunity to intervene before yesterday’s biases become tomorrow’s workplace infrastructure. Why “last”? What’s the closing window you’re seeing?

Santy: The “last” refers to the critical moment we’re in. AI is being built and deployed at a scale and speed that will define workplaces for decades. Right now, those systems are still being designed, which means the assumptions inside them are still up for debate. Those assumptions stop looking like choices and start looking like infrastructure, getting embedded in procurement contracts, trained into the next generation of models and inherited by every company that buys off the shelf rather than builds. At that point, the question is no longer what AI could be for women, but how much damage we can retrofit. There may be later chances to fix things around the edges, but much tougher to undo the harm to the foundation.  

HRE: What is HR leaders’ role in advocating for equity for women in the workplace when it comes to setting AI strategy?

Santy: HR leaders will play a pivotal role in this moment. They are uniquely positioned to advocate for equity because they understand both organizational culture and workforce dynamics, and they directly control many of the systems in which workplace AI is being deployed. CHROs should audit their own AI-enabled hiring screens, performance reviews, promotion processes, pay decisions and scheduling tools to determine whether they are creating unequal outcomes for women, particularly women from historically underrepresented groups.

They must also demand transparency and accountability from AI vendors and developers, insisting on inclusive design processes that reflect the diverse experiences and needs of the women these systems will evaluate. Finally, they should also push for data and metrics that reveal where AI is creating disparities, and use their influence to ensure AI strategy is aligned with broader equity and talent goals, not just efficiency or cost.

HRE: What’s one thing you want every CHRO reading this to go do on Monday morning to ensure their AI strategy isn’t embedding bias?

Santy: On Monday morning, identify the woman in your workforce most exposed to harm from an AI-driven decision—perhaps an hourly worker of color who has a disability, speaks English as a second language, has caregiving responsibilities and little power to challenge a scheduling or performance decision. Then, design and test your safeguards from her perspective: Can she understand the decision, question it and reach a human empowered to correct it? When you design for the woman facing the greatest barriers and the least recourse, you build a fairer, more accountable system that works better for everyone—including employees with far more privilege.

Learn more about how organizations are leveraging AI to level the playing field for women at the Women in HR Tech as part of the HR Tech Conference in Las Vegas. Click here to register.

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