Even the AI woman got paid less. Seriously?

We’ve managed to give an AI assistant a gender pay gap. That didn’t take long.

Yesterday, I read a Guardian headline about women getting left behind in the AI jobs boom.

Today, I read that an AI assistant with a female appearance received less money than the male-looking version.

Same underlying capabilities.

Honestly. Can Johanna catch a bloody break?

What actually happened?

Researchers put 189 workers into a virtual office and asked them to complete tasks with different AI assistants.

Two looked human: Johan and Johanna.

Afterwards, participants were given real money to divide between themselves and the assistant.

Johanna received 10.25% less than Johan.

This was an experiment measuring how people divided money, rather than AI assistants earning actual salaries. The University of Limerick announced the findings today.

So we shouldn’t turn one study into a sweeping statement about every workplace.

But it is a reminder that new technology doesn’t automatically come with new thinking.

Before anyone thinks I’m starting a campaign against men

I grew up with seven brothers. I have two sons.

I’m rather invested in men doing well. I’d also quite like them to locate their own belongings occasionally, or lift the toilet seat once in a while but that’s a separate newsletter.

I want women to have a fair chance at the opportunities opening up too.

LinkedIn’s research, published in August, found women made up 26% of US hires into AI jobs in 2025. Outside AI, it was 50%.

Across 27 countries studied, women held 13% of the most senior AI leadership roles at AI companies.

Those figures measure particular jobs and leadership positions. They don’t tell us what every woman wants, how capable she is or what she could do with AI.

They do give us a reason to pay attention.

Because while everyone is debating which jobs AI might take, there are also opportunities being created.

I’d like more women to know what’s available.

You don’t need to change careers to get involved

I’m not suggesting you abandon your job and become a software engineer.

I haven’t. You don’t need to, there’s so many free resources out there to help you with the basics and we build from there.

What excites me is being able to do something with an idea that previously stopped at: “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

A website you couldn’t build.

A product you couldn’t quite put together.

A recurring task at work that you know could be done better, if you had the time or help to explore it.

AI can help with parts of that work.

It can help you research that idea you have, draft content, build a first version or test a simple tool. You still need to make decisions, check what it produces and work out whether the result is any good.

Some of its suggestions will be excellent.

Some will need a good talking to for the ridiculous content.

That’s where your judgement comes in.

This is the bit I’ve experienced myself

I now have a website and products people can open, use and buy.

A few years ago, I wouldn’t have known how to do much of what went into creating them.

I still have my job. Two kids. A washing basket with apparently unlimited growth potential.

AI helped me tackle parts of the research and building. I still had to choose what to make, fix things and finish it.

Being capable of having an idea and being equipped to make it are two different things.

That gap has become smaller for me.

I want to help make it smaller for you too. If I can do it, so can you.

THE EXECUTIVE EDIT

This week, think of the idea you keep postponing, or brain dump in your notes app, copy it over to Chat GPT or Claude and see where it takes you.

Choose one small thing that would make it more real: learn a skill (hello YouTube university), draft a rough product outline, a first website draft or a simple tracker.

Ask AI to help you make that first version using what you already know. Ask it to flag assumptions and anything you need to check.

Then review it.

What’s useful? What’s wrong? What would you change?

You don’t have to launch a business by Thursday.

Just see whether you can get further than you thought.

Why my first Edit was for women

AIEE is for anyone who wants to use AI practically.

But I chose women for my first programme because I wanted to help more of us understand what these tools could make possible.

At work. With an idea of our own. Another income. With something we’ve wanted to try but couldn’t quite see a route into. Now you do.

I can’t fix the hiring figures with a guide.

But I can give you somewhere useful to start.

The foundations of The AI Femme Edit are free.

Explore The AI Femme Edit

Heather x

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