Women are playing an important role and will continue to play even more crucial roles in how businesses function today and tomorrow, asserts Neha Jain.

 Last month I had a chance to present the key findings from our report ‘Gen AI: The Diversity Game Changer We Can’t Ignore’ at the start event of AnitaB.org India’s GHCI 24 Hopper Roadshow, which was done in collaboration with Nagarro.

 The event kickstarted with a roundtable where we discussed the key findings of our report which included a discussion on:

1. The current position of women in AI 

2. Gen AI adoption in India is driven by efficiency and innovation

·         72% of women highlighted using Gen AI for improving efficiency and time management

·         51% of women highlighted Gen AI usage for fostering innovation and creativity

3. What is driving the gap? 

Despite all the efforts, we continue to see the Gaps in AI professionals and some in Senior Leadership levels.

What is the reason for the same?

·         Is it a lack of professional ambition? The answer is NO!

·         Do they feel Gen AI is not critical for success? Again NO!

90% of women see Gen AI as crucial for career growth. 

4. Then what are the challenges? 

The top one is a lack of knowledge of Gen AI tools.

5. The next question that crops up is how can we solve this?

This was the question we discussed across the roundtable and the speaker in the room agreed to the ways we suggested in our report which include:

1. Reassess leadership teams working on Gen AI to ensure diverse voices and varying ethical perspectives

2. Demystify Gen AI career pathways, encourage participation

3. Manage risk tolerance and strengthen mentorship efforts

4. Advocate flexible work models to enhance learning and experimentation

5. Prioritise responsible and ethical AI training

6. Build a strong community of practice in Gen AI, and

7. Foster an inclusive culture and measure talent pipeline diligently.

Apart from the ones we covered in the report, the group advocated a focus on softer skills when dealing with various personal issues that may be bothering employees especially women as they try to juggle many hats; as an important factor for any employee initiative to be successful.

Also, for women to lead a professionally successful journey a strong support system has a very important role to play.

Also, there is a need to have a nurturing environment from the start – resources supplied to girls; personal as well as professional roles need to be gender agnostic. Organisations need to create the right environment where employees, especially women can speak up to managers and peers.

So, in a nutshell, a lot needs to change in the ways we are bringing up our girls!

Ethical AI: Women's critical role in shaping the future of technology

A major part of the discussion also focused on women’s role in shaping the future of technology, especially in AI, where a lack of women's participation is resulting in a number of biases that we see across AI tools. Moreover, as women today are wearing the decision-maker hat for a lot of products that they are buying for themselves or for families, a lack of representation of this gender at the technology as well as product design level could be a big loss to businesses. Also, as we see more and more AI being used in marketing, inherent biases in these tools can ruin campaigns.

Overall, women are playing an important role and will continue to play even more crucial roles in how businesses function today and tomorrow. So, the seat on the table and participation in technology are not just ‘good to have’ but a ‘must have’ – for organisations!

Article Courtesy: NASSCOM Community – an open knowledge sharing platform for the Indian technology industry: https://community.nasscom.in/communities/women-leading-change/ethical-ai-womens-critical-role-shaping-future-technology

Neha Jain is a Senior Analyst at NASSCOM. Her current focus areas include: patents, mobility, datacentres, future of work, and sustainability.

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