The AI Gender Gap Is the New Wage Gap

Women are asking if they should use AI. Men are already building with it.

I saw a TikTok from @jadebeguelin recently that stopped me mid-scroll. She was talking about how every time she mentions AI to her audience — which is mostly women — she gets pushback. Comments about destroying the planet. Comments about how we shouldn’t be using these tools. Meanwhile, on the tech bro side of her feed? Nobody’s debating whether to use AI. They’re just using it. Building with it. Making money with it.

And I felt that in my bones. Because I’ve lived it.

We’re doing what we always do.

Women are out here considering the ethics. Weighing the implications. Feeling guilty about the environmental impact. Thinking about what AI means for society, for jobs, for the future. And men are just... using the thing.

And here’s what’s so frustrating about that — the critical thinking isn’t wrong. The ethics matter. The questions women are asking about AI are important questions. But they’re also the questions that make you pause. And while we pause, someone else moves forward.

That’s always been the pattern, hasn’t it? Women carry the moral weight. We consider everyone. We think about the ripple effects. Those are genuinely good instincts. But right now, those instincts are keeping a lot of women on the sidelines of the biggest technological shift of our generation.

The content gap tells the whole story.

Look at AI content aimed at men: build a SaaS product in a weekend. Automate your business. Create a new revenue stream. The energy is go.

Now look at AI content aimed at women: write a Valentine’s Day card with ChatGPT. Optimize your Hinge profile. Generate a cute Instagram caption.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But if that’s the primary conversation women are having about AI — a technology that is fundamentally reshaping how businesses operate and how people earn a living — then we are dramatically underestimating ourselves. And honestly, being underestimated.

There’s currently a 20-25% gender gap in AI adoption between men and women. And I don’t think people appreciate how quickly that gap is going to compound.

The AI gender gap is the new wage gap.

Twenty years ago, understanding money — how to invest, how to build wealth, how to negotiate — was the dividing line. Women who built financial literacy early changed the trajectory of their careers and their families. The women who were told “don’t worry about that” are still paying for it.

AI is that same inflection point. It’s the difference between spending 10 hours on something and spending 2. Between having an idea and actually building it. Between competing and watching your competitors move faster because they weren’t afraid to use the tools.

And right now, we’re in a subsidized window.

VCs have poured billions into AI companies. That means the tools we have access to today — ChatGPT, Claude, Midjourney — are being offered at a fraction of what they’ll eventually cost. Companies are practically giving them away to build market share.

This is the cheapest and most accessible AI will ever be. Waiting doesn’t make it easier. It makes it harder and more expensive.

This is why I started Women Building with AI.

Not because I think women are behind. But because I was tired of seeing the AI conversation for women stop at Valentine’s Day cards.

I wanted a space where women are having the real conversation — the business conversation, the building conversation. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

Kirsten Lee Hill, one of our members, is using AI to build a survey platform to compete with Qualtrics. Not a caption generator. A product. A business.

Tula is building at Mesh Agent, a collaborative AI platform where teams can work alongside multiple AI agents in shared rooms — think Google Docs meets AI infrastructure. She’s helping take it from a developer-only tool to something accessible to non-technical users, designing workshops for everyone from no-code builders to engineers, and working with organizations like a California school district that’s using the platform so students can interview historical figures through voice-powered AI agents. She’s not just using AI. She’s building the tools that make AI usable for everyone else.

These aren’t side projects. These are women building real products, real platforms, real businesses with AI. That’s the bar. And I want to see more women clear it.

The opportunity is right now.

You don’t need to be technical. You don’t need to understand how large language models work. You just need to start. Pick one workflow in your business or your life. Try it with AI. See what happens.

The women who build AI fluency now are going to be the ones leading the next wave. I’d rather be early than catching up

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