By: Sheba Fernando, AVP & Head of Enterprise AI Solutions, LTIMindtree

Introduction

In today’s evolving technological landscape, Generative AI (GenAI) is revolutionizing industries, pushing the boundaries of innovation, and creating a significant opportunity for growth. While this revolution is reshaping productivity, and creativity, and enabling new business models, ensuring that GenAI remains inclusive and unbiased is a pivotal challenge. To fully harness its power, organizations must prioritize diversity and inclusivity in both the development and application of GenAI.

According to a NASSCOM survey, the trend in GenAI in terms of the gender gap becomes even more pronounced with increased years of experience, widening to a 63% difference at the senior management level and a 43% difference at the mid-management level. What’s astonishing is that at junior levels as well, 33% of women are GenAI professionals, highlighting the need for targeted efforts to build a robust pipeline and reduce this disparity.

The question remains: How can GenAI be leveraged to not only drive innovation but also foster inclusivity, especially for women in tech?

Challenges Affecting Women in Tech with Advancements in Generative AI:

1. Skill Gap and Access to Training
   The rapid evolution of GenAI makes it challenging in terms of access to infrastructure due to its high graphic processing unit (GPU) and inferencing costs. This has posed limitations for women to access the right upskilling opportunities due to limited budgets, resources, or support. This can hinder their ability to remain competitive in the field.

2. Bias in AI Tools and Data
   Content generated by AI models, including GenAI, can sometimes reinforce gender stereotypes. For instance, an AI model might produce biased text that suggests certain roles or attributes are more appropriate for women, such as domestic tasks or emotional traits, while assigning leadership or technical skills to men. This bias can lead to increased skepticism among women, who may find AI systems unresponsive to their needs. As a result, they might develop mistrust towards the technology, leading to lower adoption rates or less frequent use. For instance, if GenAI systems used in recruitment are trained on biased hiring data, they may favor male candidates over equally qualified female candidates.

3. Balancing Career and Personal Responsibilities
   The fast-paced nature of AI advancements requires constant learning and adaptation, making it difficult for women who balance their careers with family responsibilities to stay on track.

4. Gender Pay Gap and Recognition
   Pay disparities and a lack of visibility for women’s contributions to AI projects hinder their growth.

Focus on Ethical AI

As AI systems increasingly influence decision-making, ethical considerations are gaining prominence. There is an increasing emphasis on ethical AI, including fairness, transparency, and accountability, which are central to building trust in AI systems. Creating impartial pathways for women not only drives richer innovation but also builds a stronger GenAI landscape that reflects our diverse society.

Integrating Ethical AI into GenAI Strategies

As organizations drive a GenAI-first agenda, integrating ethical AI practices is essential. GenAI systems must be designed and deployed responsibly to ensure they don’t reinforce existing biases or create new ones. Incorporating ethical training into GenAI strategies is critical for achieving this. Creating impartial pathways for women in specialized roles in ethical AI compliance and audit not only drives richer innovation but also builds a stronger GenAI landscape that reflects our diverse society and builds trusted AI solutions

Develop a Comprehensive Ethical AI Framework:

Organizations must establish clear ethical guidelines that outline their commitment to responsible AI development, addressing issues such as bias mitigation, transparency, and accountability. Ensure that any data used for AI solutions are not gender biased for an equitable workforce adoption.

1. Ensure Accessible Ethical AI Tools:
   Ensure that GenAI platforms are accessible across the organization and aligned with ethical AI principles, with diversity and inclusion as a key agenda

2. Enable Mandatory Ethics Training:
   Ethical AI training should be mandatory for employees involved in AI development, ensuring they understand the importance of gender equality, regional policies, costs, and the return on investment in behind building AI systems responsibly.

3. Allow for Cross-functional Ethical AI Teams:
   Create diverse teams, including D&I council, ethicists, legal experts, corporate security advisories, industry consortia, academic research firms, and sociologists, to provide a well-rounded perspective on AI ethics. These teams can evaluate AI policies and guide ethical concerns throughout the transformation process.

4. Continuous Monitoring and Evaluation:
   Continuously assess the effectiveness of ethical training and engage with D&I council, stakeholders, including customers and regulators, to ensure equity, transparency and accountability.

Balancing Gender Diversity with GenAI at LTIMindtree

At LTIMindtree, we believe GenAI is not only a groundbreaking technology but also a catalyst for inclusivity. While the advancements in GenAI presents unique challenges for women in tech, it also offers immense potential to address systemic barriers and create equitable opportunities. We are committed to leveraging this transformative power to foster a more inclusive environment where women can thrive as innovators and leaders.

Our approach ensures that women have the resources, support, and opportunities they need to overcome barriers, stay competitive, and contribute meaningfully to the Generative AI revolution.

According to the World Economic Forum, only 22% of AI professionals are women, highlighting a significant gender disparity in the industry. To create a more inclusive GenAI landscape, organizations need a multi-faceted approach that tackles recruitment, retention, leadership development, and workplace culture. Here are several strategies to ensure women are empowered in the GenAI revolution:

• Targeted Recruitment and Outreach:
  • Scholarships and Paid Internships: Offering scholarships and internships to women in AI and data science fields within our specialized AI Center of excellence can significantly reduce entry barriers by ensuring increased representation and creating a pipeline of talent.
  • Diverse Hiring Panels: Having diverse recruitment panels helps mitigate unconscious bias during the hiring process and leads to fairer assessments – a varied AI panel brings together individuals with different gender, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.
• AI Career Advancement Programs:
  Pertains to ensuring tailored programs focusing on empowering women in AI through capability development. Career advancement grants support certification vouchers, sponsored paid courses, and advanced targeted education in GenAI through external and hyperscaler partner vendors, providing resources for women to excel and lead in AI innovation.
• Women Leadership Programs:  
  LTIMindtree has a dedicated Enterprise AI practice and we operate in a Hub and Spoke model to empower all units on GenAI. Our AI leadership program empowers women for senior roles, supported by executive sponsors to ensure career visibility and growth. We spotlight women leaders through conference presentations, and GenAI research publications and resources to inspire the next generation of women in AI.
• Visibility for Women in AI:  
  We celebrate women leaders who mentor emerging talent, hosting hackathons and competitions to feature female talent in AI. An annual recognition event honors top contributors in GenAI, showcasing diverse women role models across all levels. Regular company-wide and industry highlights amplify women’s achievements, expanding visibility and professional networks.
• Supportive Networking:  
  Formal programs connect women in AI with experienced mentors for guidance through regional AI clubs and other Coffee with AI networking forums. Sponsorship programs engage senior leaders to advocate for women’s advancement, fostering their AI career growth. We engage in D&I session for AI uniting women across locations to share ideas, spark innovation, and connect over career growth, skills, and technical excellence in AI.
• Flexible Work and Wellness Policies:
  Offering flexible work arrangements, including remote work options, parental leave, and childcare support, are essential to maintaining a work-life balance for women.  Also enabling AI environment for remote access with token limits, security and guardrail enablement is essential.
• Building an Inclusive Culture:  
  Fostering strong communities for women in AI through networking summits and events, panel discussions, groups and forums, industry gatherings, and knowledge-sharing platforms can help build solidarity and drive success. Ensuring accountability for diversity and inclusivity goals for AI and tracking metrics is key to sustained progress.
• Outreach Practices to enable an AI empowered society:  
  Through outreach programs and partnerships, we inspire young women and support talented individuals from diverse backgrounds. These programs support economically disadvantaged students and women returning to work post-maternity. Our initiatives offer tailored career development, internships, and pathways to full-time roles in AI.

Moving the Needle on Diversity with GenAI

To ensure progress, sustained diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are essential. These initiatives should focus on:

• Actively recruiting diverse women talent for GenAI roles.
• Creating supportive career development programs for women in GenAI.
• Ease of upskilling women in AI by improving access to GenAI platforms.
• Enable AI focused women visibility and leadership development Fostering an inclusive workplace culture enabling networking and work balance.
• Empowering the society to become a place to inspire the next generation of women in AI.

Conclusion:

We firmly believe that GenAI has the potential to create a transformative impact on gender diversity in tech. The findings of NASSCOM study, highlights that overall adoption of GenAI across Indian men and women is higher with 76% male professionals and 80% female professionals. Also 72% of women and 66% of men turn to GenAI tools for efficiency improvement. Interestingly we also see senior tech women exceed their male peers in GenAI adoption by 12% globally. This progress reflects the growing momentum of women leaders paving the way in GenAI innovation.

As more women step into this space, GenAI becomes a catalyst for fostering inclusivity, breaking barriers, and amplifying diverse voices. By actively prioritizing inclusivity through targeted initiatives, organizations can ensure that GenAI not only drives technological innovation but also shapes a more equitable industry. At LTIMindtree, we remain committed to leveraging GenAI as a force to inspire, empower, and create a balanced and just future for all.