CNBC.COM
Eighty percent of senior-level women say they're "active players" in how their workplace is building its AI strategy.
That's according to a new survey of more than 1,000 senior-level women conducted by Chief, the membership network for executive women, and The Harris Poll. A similar share of high-powered women say they're already working day-to-day to establish AI governance guidelines, create space for skills training and have explicit conversations about what good judgment looks like in the future AI-powered workplace.
The new report focusing on executive women's participation in decision-making around AI is set against a backdrop of concerns of a broader use gender gap. Previous research has found women are generally more skeptical of the technology and slower to adopt it, setting up the potential for a skills gap that turns into a long-term opportunity gap.
Survey responses from the Chief report indicate that women at the top are helping make decisions about how AI gets used in their workplaces — and voicing concerns about how it'll impact employees down the line.
For example, 87% of women leaders say they've witnessed negative outcomes when AI is prioritized without parallel investment in people, including drops in strategic thinking, institutional knowledge and entry-level opportunities.
Some 75% of women surveyed expect the critical thinking gap to get worse over the next three years, and most agree that dropping the ball on developing early-career talent will lead to a lack of capable managers to steer companies in the future.
The findings show that it's "an incomplete picture to just say that women broadly are hesitant, skeptical, and scared of adopting these tools," Chief CEO Alison Moore tells CNBC Make It.
Rather, she says women leaders are recognizing that the pressure to work quickly could have consequences on the workforce and urging leaders to design AI policies that minimize human impacts. "[Women] aren't behind on AI," Moore says: "They're thinking about the right kind of questions to interrogate it in order to build it to last."
While senior-level women overwhelmingly support the sustainable use of AI at work, they're also shut out of many rooms where these decisions get made. Women remain underrepresented at every level of the leadership pipeline, with just 93 women being promoted to manager roles for every 100 men, according to Lean In and McKinsey & Company's latest Women in the Workplace report. Only 29% of C-suite roles are held by women.
Meanwhile, research has shown women hold a lion's share of the jobs most likely to be disrupted and displaced by AI. Some 6.1 million U.S. workers face both high exposure to AI and low ability to adapt if they're displaced, according to research from the Brookings Institution; 86% of that share are women, with many concentrated in clerical and administrative roles.
The Chief report says women leaders "are fast becoming the champions for a more humane approach to AI adoption."
In the past 12 months, 48% of women surveyed said they've taken active steps to help workers retain and learn new skills as AI replaces entry-level work, 44% say they've worked to maintain morale and trust at their organizations, and 42% have worked to protect team dynamics and culture.
Ultimately, 85% of women surveyed said they believe businesses that invest in both AI and employee development will outperform those focused just on advancing tech.
Leaders must "recognize the decisions we make today around AI will shape multiple things in the workforce," Moore says, including how people relate to one another and how the next generation will build their lives and careers.
The rapid adoption of AI is a "defining moment" for leaders, Moore says. "The point of this is that women leaders are asking different questions. It is not hesitation or slowness," she says. Instead, they're posing challenging questions to take "an active role in [choosing] what to protect while we move fast."
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