AI is widening the gender pay gap

• Key Insight: Learn why unequal AI adoption is reshaping hiring and advancement for women.
• What's at Stake: Female-dominated roles face displacement and widening pay and promotion gaps.
• Forward Look: Employers must invest in cross-role AI upskilling and transparency to retain talent.
  Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

Currently, women are less likely than men to engage with AI at every step of the new hire experience — from what's on their resume to how they see their career trajectory — and it's costing them their careers. 

According to a recent survey from career insights platform ZipRecruiter, only 13% of women have listed AI skills on their resumes compared to 15% of men, and less that 30% have experienced an AI-led or assisted interview process compared to 45% of their male colleagues. Most notably, just 13% of female workers use AI daily or even weekly in their roles, unlike 55% of men. The difference in experience with emerging tech tools is making it harder for women to move forward in a progressively more AI-focused workforce.    

"There's clearly a big gap in general between those who use AI tools in their job search and those who don't," said Nicole Bachaud, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter. "But what's really interesting is that these tools aren't leveling the playing field at all — [they're doing] just the opposite."

Read more: How to strike the balance between AI innovation and employee experience

According to ZipRecruiter's findings, on average women submit more applications than men (18 vs 15), with most of them (58%) opting to fill out their applications manually, while only 16% of men are likely to do the same, relying more heavily on AI tools instead. At the next stage, women tend to receive fewer interviews, with only 48% of women new hires receiving multiple offers in their job search versus 65% of men. This results in fewer career mobility opportunities, which comes with steep financial implications for women seeking career development. Fewer offers means higher salary negotiations are less likely, leading 30% of women to report lower pay in their new jobs compared to just 16% of men. 

Exacerbating the situation, Bachaud said, is that the majority of the jobs most at risk of being really disrupted by AI are held by women, according to labor force data, and employers have generally not been focused on remedying that disparity. 

"From education, training and resourcing, there needs to be more of a focus on some kind of collaborative effort," Bachaud said. "Leaders should be creating training pathways that really open up access to better career opportunities for every employee across every role." 

Equitable AI training

For employers, this means that the path forward will require a meaningful investment in educational efforts to upskill their existing workforce — particularly women — alongside a commitment to greater transparency in job descriptions to support long-term retention. Expanding access to upskilling helps build a more capable and resilient workforce, which ultimately benefits employers as well. Additionally, if organizations are introducing AI-specific training, Bachaud stressed that those opportunities should be made available to employees across every position rather than limited to certain groups or technical roles. 

Read more: The top power skills that will drive workplace transformation

"A woman in an administrative role may not necessarily think that she needs to engage with these tools that only the engineering team is using," Bachaud said. "But if she really understands how it all pertains to her role within a company, it's much easier to kind of bring in employees from roles that maybe would have been left behind otherwise." 

The demands of work are inevitably changing across the board due to AI, Bachaud said, and it's critical that all employees are equally prepared for evolving job expectations and that they know what resources are available to them and how to effectively use them.

"Young women make up the workforce of tomorrow," Bachaud said. "Underinvesting in them is going to be detrimental to businesses who inevitably are going to need to hire new talent and training and education paths are what's really going to create stability."