Breaking barriers, but not there yet
We have long fought against women’s economic exclusion, particularly in rural and marginalized communities. Challenges include limited access to finance, structural and social norms, gender-blind investment, and weak policies. While progress has been made in financial inclusion, business growth, market access, and social empowerment, significant gaps remain in funding, policy enforcement, and shifting deeply rooted societal norms that hinder women’s full economic participation.
If harnessed intentionally, AI could integrate women into the digital economy and fundamentally redesign economic structures to work for them. This requires deliberate investment, inclusive AI design, and policy safeguards to ensure AI is a tool for empowerment.
AI presents an opportunity to embed gender equity into economic governance. By uncovering disparities in finance, wages, and leadership, AI can inform policy shifts, reshape investment strategies, and ensure that economic decision-making actively prioritizes women’s inclusion.
AI can improve financial inclusion by assessing non-traditional financial data, such as mobile money usage and business cash flows, to enhance lending decisions. This allows women entrepreneurs, especially those lacking collateral or formal credit history, to access capital, grow businesses, and participate in financial systems that have traditionally excluded them.
AI-driven platforms can connect women entrepreneurs directly to buyers for market access, reducing reliance on intermediaries. By analyzing demand patterns and optimizing pricing, AI helps women-led businesses gain a competitive edge. Digital trade and AI-powered matchmaking in supply chains create new economic opportunities for women in agriculture, retail, and manufacturing. Additionally, AI-powered platforms enable women to access remote work, flexible jobs, and digital careers, overcoming mobility and social constraints. AI can match women’s skills with high-demand jobs, provide personalized upskilling, and ensure their inclusion in the evolving digital economy, increasing income and career growth opportunities.
AI’s dark side: Widening the gender gap?
Most AI models rely on male-dominated datasets, leading to blind spots in recognizing women’s economic contributions. If AI systems fail to account for women-led businesses, informal work, or unpaid labor, policy and investment decisions could be misinformed, reinforcing the perception that women are less economically significant.
AI-driven financial services could also favor individuals with strong digital footprints and formal business records, disadvantaging women in informal economies. If AI-based credit scoring ignores alternative financial behaviors, such as mobile money usage or informal savings groups, it risks deepening financial exclusion rather than solving it.
Moreover, algorithmic bias could reinforce gender discrimination, as AI learns from historical data that already contains inequalities in lending, hiring, and economic participation. Without intervention, AI could replicate and scale these biases, making them harder to detect and correct.
Automation may also disproportionately replace jobs that employ large numbers of women—such as in customer service, administration, and manufacturing—pushing them out of the workforce and excluding them from the digital economy’s future opportunities.
Fix the system, not the women
Governments, investors, and tech leaders must step up. Ethical AI governance should be a non-negotiable standard in policy and investment decisions. Developers must actively audit and refine algorithms to eliminate gender bias, while investors must demand that AI models are built with equity at their core.
Harnessing AI for Women’s economic empowerment is a strategic necessity. The future of economic growth depends on inclusive AI models that empower women as leaders, entrepreneurs, and financial drivers. We must act now to ensure AI works for all.
