Here's how Indian women are navigating the world of Artificial Intelligence

Why is it that assistant bots tend to have female names and yet when it comes to adopting AI tools women are far behind men Siri and Alexa ldquoare women who take ordersrdquo says Dr Nisha Bharti an academic and data analyst ldquoI think a large number of women havenrsquot learnt how to give ordersrdquo A 2025 Harvard Business School study has found that women are adopting generative AI tools mdash such as ChatGPT Gemini Claude mdash at a 25 per cent lower rate than men on average Dr Bharti an alumna of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and a research consultant says ldquoI use AI primarily for grammar checks and to refine my writing However I donrsquot rely on AIgenerated analysis of my data The interpretation of the data must come from my own understanding and engagement with itrdquoDr Nisha Bharti starts feeling guilty when she uses AI to do her workldquoWhile using ChatGPT I start judging myself I think to myself lsquoI do not know this and ChatGPT is doing this for mersquoEven when you submit the work to your employer you feel shame for taking help from AIrdquo she says This tracks with the Harvard research which suggests that women are more concerned about the ethics of using the tools and fear they may be judged in the workplace for relying on themNamaah Kumar a 34yearold creative director uses AI to help with work She argues that the primary reason for fewer women using AI is the fact that there are more men in the workforce than women specifically industries that entail the use of generative AI Government data shows that in India male participation is around 77 per cent compared to approximately 33 per cent for women as of 20242025The deeper argument however is this ldquoToday AI is at such a nascent stage that most of us are just playing around with it to see what sticks and what doesnrsquot Men have the free time and less to lose to tinker around which women simply donrsquot haverdquo she says Women do more unpaid labour housework caregiving emotional labour Because of that men are more likely to have unstructured time to explore hobbies experiment and ldquotinkerrdquo That extra leisure time historically helped men dominate early computing gaming and tech hobbyist culturesIf women do not adapt to AI experts fear that the already existing gender pay gap might widen PICISTOCKTherersquos also the ageold argument that women are risk averse ldquoWe women are a little more sceptical about new technologies Of course we take to it like fish to water when we start But we wait for it to gain some critical mass before diving inrdquo And women are not wrong to wait ldquoespecially after seeing whatrsquos been happening with Grokrdquo says Kumar referring to Xrsquos AI chatbot which was found generating nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes of women and minorsShe recounts ldquoIn the early days of Facebook women wouldnrsquot put their own pictures as profile pictures so they donrsquot get misused Women are generally a little more wary of this because we have more to loserdquoWhy more women must dive into AIAI ethicist Dr Sundaraparipurnan Narayanan argues that the AI gender gap is a reflection of lesser participation of women in the workplace ldquoThatrsquos a decadesold problem we have not been able to solverdquo he says But if the trend continues it will only edge women further out of the workforce he warns ldquoIn say 10 to 15 years from now that gap would basically define haves and havenots If a man uses 10 AI tools to build his capability but a woman is not leveraging those tools a recruiter will see one as more capable and the other as less capablerdquoDr Sundaraparipurnan NarayananHe further adds building good AI is impossible without women ldquoPeople may generalise and say that everybody has empathy mdash yes But if you have seen women all through your life you will invariably agree that empathy is incredibly high in themrdquo he says AI is in a constant feedback loop with its users and it evolves alongside them If more women interact with AI the assumption is that it will evolve with more empathy ldquoYou do not want an AI system which is only focused on performance and progress The way I see it is that women are trained towards multitasking and problemsolving with empathy Now this is a skill that is integral for how AI evolves tomorrowrdquo