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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n
The writer is FT Working It<\/a> editor and author of \u2018The Future-Proof Career\u2019<\/p>\n Women are more likely than men to be in jobs at risk of being automated, but are also 25 per cent less likely than men to have basic digital skills, separate studies show. <\/p>\n The findings, from the International Labour Organization and the UN respectively, highlight an urgent challenge for women across the world. The artificial intelligence-driven industrial revolution<\/a> ought to offer a unique opportunity for everyone to shape the future of work, but many women are already behind. <\/p>\n A 2024 Danish study of 100,000 workers found \u201ca staggering gender gap in the adoption of [OpenAI chatbot] ChatGPT: women are 20 percentage points less likely to use ChatGPT than men in the same occupation\u201d. The researchers found the gap persisted when people in the same workplaces were compared, and when the study controlled for different task mixes.<\/p>\n So how can women keep up with AI developments \u2014 especially those who might feel too busy to take time off for training within a part-time schedule, or who may be in denial about AI\u2019s all-consuming importance? The challenges are understandable: it is hard to know where to start.<\/p>\n More on Women in Business<\/p>\n A useful resource is research company Charter\u2019s Guide to AI in the Workplace<\/a>. Instead of focusing on ideas and AI\u2019s \u201cmaybe\u201d impacts, this report has case studies on how some prominent companies are working with staff to share AI best practice.<\/p>\n But small employers don\u2019t have anything like these resources and, as the UK\u2019s Pissarides Review<\/a> into the future of work and wellbeing points out, \u201cgood impacts \u2014 including upskilling and the substitution of routine tasks \u2014 cannot be assumed and must be proactively shaped\u201d. <\/p>\n So how can you use AI yourself, even when there is no corporate, or even team-level, push for change? The best advice I have seen is from Slack<\/a>, the workplace collaboration platform, which recommends setting aside time for experimentation and learning. <\/p>\n It is also good to be curious about AI, more generally. My recent reading includes \u201cAI will change what it is to be human. Are we ready?<\/a>\u201d by economist Tyler Cowen and Avital Balwit, of AI software developer Anthropic. <\/p>\n I am also experimenting. I asked the FT\u2019s ChatGPT Enterprise to tell me what is holding women back in adopting AI. It pointed to a 2024 study on women and generative AI by Deloitte, the consultancy. The researchers expected \u201cthe proportion of women experimenting with and using gen AI for projects and tasks will match or surpass that of men in the United States by the end of 2025\u201d. So it is not all doom and gloom. <\/p>\n