I find the divergence in their thinking a near-perfect juxtaposition of the difference between stereotypically feminine and masculine ways of looking at the world, and the world of AI at that. Research findings across social sciences demonstrate that typically (but not deterministically) women are more focused on the micro, the human dimension, on collaboration, while men focus more on the macro, the bottom line, and competition. This difference explains why women are more likely to adopt more “human-centric” AI governance, to worry about and be more driven to consider the risks to humans involved in developing AI products before rolling them out, particularly given that women are more likely to be adversely affected in a multitude of ways, including in their job prospects.

Admittedly, the best formula for ensuring that societies, industries, and businesses thrive would be a balanced combination of these different types of thinking. The big challenge that the AI industry faces (and, indeed, society at large) is that it has traditionally excluded women and the inclusive thinking they bring to the table. 

Unfortunately, things are getting worse. When the Addy Kassova Audience Strategy (AKAS) research lead Richard Addy emailed me a stack of comparative stats to review for this piece, he wrote one sentence: “Much worse than I imagined!!!”

In 2023, I wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian entitled “Where Are the ‘Godmothers’ of AI?” in which I sounded the alarm on the marginalisation of women in the AI industry and news coverage about AI. Since then, the global anti-gender-equality movement has gained momentum, culminating in President Trump’s attack on diversity and inclusion, which led to many tech goliaths abandoning their diversity targets and removing content moderation guardrails from their platforms.

Consequently, women’s representation in core tech roles has fallen from 22% in 2023 to 19% in 2026. AKAS investigations showed that the CEOs and chairs of boards of the 11 biggest AI companies form an all-male crew operating the rocket taking us into the future. According to our pronoun analysis of AI coverage on the global online news database GDELT, women’s share of voice in AI coverage declined from 21% in 2023 to 19% in 2025. 

And if you think a 1 to 5 women to men ratio is bad, the stats for the voices of AI’s prominent godmothers are scarcely better. The total share of women’s voice in news about AI, based on Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 most influential AI global figures, has declined from 41% of all voices in 2023 to 28% in 2025. AI businesswomen’s share of voice, where power concentrates, has collapsed from over 1 in 4 (27%) to 1 in 6 (16%).

Fei-Fei Li, founding co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute, and Yejin Choi, a senior fellow there, are the only two women who featured in the 2023 list to remain in the 2025 edition. However, their voices are drowned out by the overpowering voices of Elon Musk and Sam Altman. In 2023, mentions of Musk or Altman in news articles referencing AI were 69 times more frequent than mentions of Li or Choi. By 2025, that ratio had skyrocketed to 323 times.