There are clear signs that AI has been adopted at different rates along gender lines, driven in large part by greater skepticism on the part of women.
This gap in adoption has narrowed as time has gone on: A recent study by the Pew Research Center found men and women now use AI chatbots at similar rates, relative to two years ago when men reported using them more by 11 percentage points.
But the data shows that men still use those tools more regularly than women do—particularly in the workplace. Recent findings by Lean In showed that men were more likely to use AI at work daily, and a new report published on Tuesday indicates that this gap widens when it comes to career and pay negotiations. In a survey conducted by AI career strategist Ruth in partnership with The Harris Poll, there was a marked difference in terms of how much men and women seemed to trust AI to help them navigate compensation discussions.
The survey, which polled 2,131 workers, found that 63% of men had used AI for pay advice, as compared to 42% of women who had done the same. Men also seemed more likely to put their faith in AI when they were trying to negotiate pay, with 59% of them saying they would consult AI on what to ask for in terms of a salary or raise, while 44% of women said they would do the same.
On the whole, men were simply more open to the idea of taking advice from AI: About 57% of men were more inclined to trust advice from AI as much as advice from a human, as compared to 43% of women. While it’s not unusual to seek out work-related advice from AI—with 45% of adults doing so—only about 33% of survey respondents said they use it for advice on pay negotiations.
As the report points out, however, this imbalance could perpetuate the kind of bias that has sustained the gender pay gap and made it more difficult for women to negotiate compensation.
Plenty of workers do seem to understand that AI often strikes an authoritative tone, regardless of whether it is providing accurate information: Over 70% of people surveyed said they found that AI was very confident even when its advice was incorrect. Even so, many workers were oblivious to the fact that AI does not offer neutral advice: Research has shown that AI chatbots recommend lower salaries to women and people of color, but over three-quarters of the people surveyed by Ruth said they didn’t realize that AI could provide career advice that was biased. And many of them—43%—did not think their race or gender could have influenced the advice they received.
The workers who were least surprised by this potential for bias? Young women.
Over a quarter of young women surveyed said they were “not at all surprised” by the findings on bias. This is a consistent theme in all kinds of surveys, regardless of age or background: Women are much more hesitant to embrace AI and tend to view it negatively, in part because many of them have ethical concerns about the technology or see it as a threat.
The gender gap might be driving some of this reluctance; women are not encouraged to use AI as much as their male peers, even though there is evidence that some of them, like female entrepreneurs, may actually benefit more than men when they do adopt it.
But it’s hard to fault women for being so cautious about what the future may hold—especially when they are more likely to bear the brunt of the job displacement and disruption that AI is already ushering in.
