The future of AI is being written now, women must hold the pen too

This collective op-ed, signed by around twenty business leaders, representatives of associations, and higher-education institutions, including Wavestone, was published on April 4, 2026, on the website of the French business paper Les Echos.

The image is striking. At the most recent AI summit in India, only one woman appeared among the fourteen representatives in the official photograph. As AI takes on a structuring role and reshapes power dynamics, one reality becomes clear: if women are not sufficiently present today, they risk no longer being present at all tomorrow.

The figures speak for themselves. According to the World Economic Forum, women represent less than one third of the workforce in STEM fields, only 22% of AI-related roles, and fewer than 15% of associated leadership positions. Another revealing indicator adds to this picture: a Harvard Business School study shows that women are 20% less likely to use generative AI in their work.

A systemic risk

This gap is not marginal. In the coming years, it will mechanically lead to a skills deficit, followed by an opportunity deficit. In other words, a risk of economic disengagement. Companies that fail to mobilize all their talent deprive themselves of a critical share of their ability to adapt.

Technologies developed in insufficiently diverse environments are also more exposed to bias, less robust, and ultimately less competitive. When systems that will shape hiring decisions, access to training, or financing embed distorted representations, the absence of women is no longer a simple imbalance. It becomes a systemic risk.

This lag does not stem from a lack of interest or instinctive caution. It is rooted in long-standing social, educational, and professional mechanisms, some of which are even re-emerging today.

Upstream, 56% of female students in digital-related fields report having been discouraged from pursuing these paths because of their gender, compared with 45% in 2021 (Gender Scan France 2025). At the same time, the proliferation of non-consensual deepfakes in schools, which overwhelmingly target teenage girls, associates digital technologies at a very early stage with violent or intrusive uses and fuels lasting mistrust.

The fear of being judged when using AI

In the professional world, additional dynamics come into play. The fear of being judged, of “cheating” by using AI, or of having one’s legitimacy questioned does exist, but it is not an individual barrier. It is embedded in work environments where AI use remains insufficiently regulated, poorly explained, and unevenly valued, and where women have historically been more exposed to judgments about competence.

These mechanisms generate distrust that goes beyond individual career paths. They slow the spread of AI adoption and already weigh on organizations’ ability to fully benefit from emerging tools. Yet AI is expected to become as commonplace a work tool as email or spreadsheets. Failing to remove these barriers amounts to accepting that part of the workforce will self-censor in the face of a technology that is becoming central to professional life.

Asserting inclusive leadership in the global AI race

Many women have already taken ownership of the issue: business leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs, public officials, and hybrid profiles. They demonstrate that a talent pool exists. The inflection point is therefore no longer awareness, but scale.

The challenge goes far beyond individual responsibility or even that of companies. It directly concerns France’s international positioning. The G7 presidency can serve as a diplomatic lever to advance a global agenda for inclusive, ethical, and responsible AI. At a time when global blocs are competing over norms, standards, and value chains, what is at stake is a battle of values, even of sovereignty, far more than a purely academic debate.

Two measures could have an immediate impact. First, accelerating and amplifying the visibility of women in AI by supporting proven initiatives such as the Expertes France directory (in France) or the Femmes en Vue program, so that media outlets, institutions, and companies finally have access to female voices, and no panel or decision-making body can operate without diversity.

Second, integrating gender-based governance indicators into AI strategies, in order to objectively measure progress and avoid the illusion of purely declarative commitments. Without indicators, no progress can be genuinely steered.

Companies to assume their share of responsibility

Companies and organizations must also assume their share of responsibility. They must attract female talent in AI-related recruitment. Clarify career paths. Train women as much as, and sometimes more than, men. Monitor AI adoption through a gender lens. Promote inspiring female role models across all functions. Provide mentoring, support, and peer learning. Deploy AI use cases that are useful, ethical, and well governed.

The future of AI is being built now. It is reshuffling the deck and reorganizing value chains. Including women in AI is not a symbolic fight. It conditions the ability of these technologies to reflect the values we stand for and the world we want to live in. In every major technological transformation, those who are not at the table inevitably end up on the menu.

Wavestone signatories: Pascal Imbert CEO, Imène Kabouya, Partner AI, Hélène Cambournac, Chief Sustainability Officer

Read more:

Who will shape the future of AI? Meet the winners of Women Entrepreneurs in Tech 2026 | Wavestone