Pick any role of your choice, in any field, and you’ll find that AI fundamentally alters it. Engineering, product design, customer support, legal services, teaching—it’s everywhere. LinkedIn is flooded with posts and courses on “augmenting” your career with AI. 

While AI is driving dramatic advances in healthcare, education, banking, and everything in between, there’s just one thing to address: more women’s participation in AI.

A 2025 report by the World Economic Forum and LinkedIn found that AI is exacerbating the gender gap. It showed that women currently have fewer roles augmented by AI and more in those disrupted by the technology. 

A recent joint study, from the United Nations’ International Labour Organization and Poland’s National Research Institute, found a significant contrast between the at-risk jobs of women and men. The jobs most likely to be performed by AI comprised 9.6% of female employment compared to just 3.5% of jobs typically held by men. 

Globally, women make up less than a third of AI professionals and only 18% of AI researchers. In AI training programs, women represent just 28% of enrollments worldwide.

As it turns out, amid the global furore around women being written out of the future of AI, whether as developers or AI experts, the UAE is crafting a strategy largely with women. Well, it is crucial for business and economic growth and the development of AI-based technologies that avoid bias.

Let’s start with some insights.

Women constitute over 45.7% of the labor force, of which 66% are public sector workers, with 30% in leadership roles and 15% in technical and academic roles. 

Women represent 56% of the graduates from STEM fields, while 44.5% of engineering undergraduates in the country are female, one of the highest globally.

“Under the UAE’s National Strategy for AI 2031 as AI continues to be embedded across sectors like healthcare, logistics, finance, and sustainability, women will be at the forefront—not just as users or analysts, but as creators, strategists, and thought leaders,” says Aarti Mohan, Vice President of Business Applications, ECEMEA region at Oracle.

In the next five years, with the rapid adoption of the latest digital technologies and strong female participation in the workforce, Mohan says, “Women will contribute significantly to the success of the UAE’s AI economy.” 

It’s already happening, and there are a few encouraging trends.

“At MBZUAI, around 31% of our student body is female, and we’re seeing rising momentum among early-career women who are driving research and innovation in AI,” says Prof. Elizabeth Churchill, Department Head of Human-Computer Interaction at Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI)

As the UAE doubles down on tech-driven growth, Prof. Churchill, adds that more women will step into key roles and shape the future of AI across critical sectors like healthcare, education, and sustainability.

Globally, the gender gap in AI expertise plagues AI research. Concerns are increasingly raised that the consequence is more than a discomfort— it can result in AI systems that reinforce gender stereotypes and ignore inequities. 

In the UAE, however, women are steadily stepping into pivotal research and development roles. They make critical decisions, including designing models, selecting training data, determining data usage, and developing testing protocols, impacting AI’s accountability, accuracy, and societal implications.

For example, Neha Sengupta, Principal Applied Scientist at G42, whose focus is on Arabic NLP and LLMs, has been central to developing Jais, a series of Arabic-centric bilingual LLMs.

Aiming to contribute to the UAE’s AI-driven healthcare evolution, Umaima Rahman, who recently earned her Ph.D. in Computer Vision from MBZUAI and is a researcher in medical imaging, a field that is critical to building AI systems that work reliably in real-world clinical settings, says, “I want to leverage AI to solve real-world healthcare challenges with innovation that is inclusive, equitable, and clinically meaningful.”

Daniya Najiha Abdul Kareem, a computer vision research professional, says it is important to amplify women’s voices in decision-making to position the country as a global leader in AI innovation.

“Amplifying women’s voices means ensuring they are leading on research agendas, policies, and real-world applications,” says Abdul Kareem, adding that she aims to contribute through “cutting-edge research, strategic mentorship, and active advocacy by developing ethical, inclusive AI technologies.”

There are no easy solutions to reduce AI bias, but there’s unanimity that adding professional AI women’s voices to the development process could increase the accountability of AI systems and minimize the risks of opacity, bias, and manipulation.

BUSINESSES ACCELERATING GENDER INCLUSION

Over the past few years, various reports have found that women, on average, tend to consider a broader range of stakeholders in AI decision-making, including the environmental risks associated with massive computational power, while also anticipating more risks. They are more likely to explore topics with broad societal relevance.

Taking a cue, the government and leading businesses in the country are not only enhancing access to AI but, most importantly, accelerating gender inclusion into leadership positions and technical jobs. 

For example, Dr. Najwa Aaraj, CEO at Technology Innovation Institute, Dena Almansoori, Group Chief AI and Data Officer at e&, Xi Liang as Head of Artificial Intelligence at Mashreq and Moza Omar Al Futtaim, Chief AI Officer of Al-Futtaim Group, are some of the key players leading AI adoption in the UAE.

All agree that to improve gender parity in AI, organizations must systematically get women into leadership roles. 

“At Al-Futtaim, this is a strategic priority aligned with the UAE’s agenda to empower women, guided by We the UAE 2031 and the UAE Gender Balance Council,” says David Henderson, Chief Human Resources Officer, Al-Futtaim.

Through partnerships with Microsoft and LinkedIn, Al-Futtaim has launched group-wide upskilling initiatives that address critical skills gaps and enable women to transition into high-impact digital roles. 

“Our leadership in this space is also reflected in our senior leadership, such as our Chief AI Officer, Moza Al Futtaim, demonstrating how inclusive leadership can drive innovation and shape a more equitable, AI-ready future across the group.”

Henderson adds that integrating gender parity into AI strategy is not only important but essential to building AI systems that are fair, representative, and aligned with the UAE’s long-term vision for inclusive economic growth. 

“We view this through two lenses: talent and technology. Ensuring women are included in AI upskilling and digital leadership is critical…Diverse teams help reduce bias—building AI with inclusive input is not just good practice, it’s a responsibility.”

Also, diverse teams bring broader perspectives, which leads to stronger innovation and more thoughtful, ethical design.

“In a field like AI that is fast-moving and globally competitive, what matters most is building agile, resilient teams,” says Prof. Churchill. “And for that, you need diversity. You need women. And the UAE gets this. I see how seriously it invests in education, healthcare, and women’s leadership as a strategy.” 

As AI is rapidly incorporated into business operations, experts emphasize that big tech companies should share the responsibility of AI upskilling women, reinforcing the importance of ensuring a wide range of stakeholders to build gender-diverse teams.

“Participation of all stakeholders is vital for the success of the AI economy,” says Mohan. “Large technology organizations must perform a key role in helping create a strong local talent pipeline to ensure the successful implementation of these technologies and help drive inclusive growth.”

In 2024, Oracle, with Dubai Business Women Council (DNWC),  launched the “sAIdaty” initiative to enhance AI skills amongst women professionals and entrepreneurs in Dubai and the wider UAE to support the country’s AI economy goals.

In its first phase, the initiative upskilled 500 women members of the DBWC with AI skills that Mohan says “have helped them implement the technology across their businesses, workplace, and other spheres to achieve strategic goals and explore new growth avenues.”

In its second phase, the program now offers professional AI certifications to women for careers in the country’s fast-growing IT industry.

More AI-skilling initiatives are launched to empower women. In 2024, Zaka, a provider of AI education, joined forces with the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation to launch the Nomu Al Ghurair: Women in AI, a fully funded  20-week machine learning specialization program for women.

Gender disparity in AI isn’t just a pipeline problem; women everywhere need to start using AI tools in their daily lives and work

And as our understanding of AI’s ethical and societal ramifications grows, from AI tools perpetuating gender stereotypes, job recruitment algorithms that favor male candidates, deepfake technology disproportionately targeting women with fake intimate images to AI chatbots giving different career advice to users depending on their gender, one thing is clear: AI teams must listen to more women’s voices to improve the accountability, accuracy, and societal impact of the tools they develop.

In the UAE, as women step into AI research roles, Rahman, who plans to launch a podcast with fellow women researchers to inspire more young women to carve out their space in AI, says, “I can feel that change firsthand from the growing number of messages and inquiries I receive from aspiring women researchers.”

While there is still much work to be done to increase women’s representation in AI, Prof. Churchill emphasizes that “since moving to the UAE, I have observed that women here are not merely token leaders; they are actively shaping policy, research, and business. This level of leadership fosters an inclusive and collaborative environment.” 

These are encouraging signs that women are catching up on AI literacy, skills, and leadership roles. Currently, no economy fully leverages all available talent to drive innovation, but the UAE is doing better than others. In a race where every competitive edge counts, this is significant.