OP-Ed: From Gaming to Gowns: Bringing More Women to Artificial Intelligence
Bringing more women into artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just about gender equality. The science of AI offers the opportunity to make data more human, positively impacting nearly every aspect of our lives. Since artificial intelligence uses technology to mimic human decision-making, it is a field that requires a diversity in perspectives from the people who develop it, and yet the gender gap in AI companies limits the innovation and integrity of the products they create. If the data fed into AI algorithms contain bias, their outcomes will as well.
Research from Gartner predicts that in 2022, 85% of AI projects will deliver “erroneous outcomes owing to bias in data, algorithms or the teams responsible for managing them.” To prevent AI from furthering discrimination, we need to start by looking at the man – and the woman – in the mirror, and ensure that those creating and developing AI technology represent a spectrum of society at large.
Supporting Female Talent to Grow and Thrive
This doesn’t mean that creating a representative workplace is easy. Getting more women and diverse populations into STEM is a slow process, starting with primary education and eventually moving into universities and technical schools, encouraging and cultivating talent at every step in the process. Yet research shows that gender diversity can truly make a profound impact, even to a company’s bottom line. As the co-founder of a female-led AI company, we focus on what we can do as employers to embrace and develop female talent in the workplace. I recognize that this is only one piece of the puzzle, but through the inspiring stories I hear of female coders, engineers, and technologists, I am encouraged that even small steps can make a difference.
For those of us in the retail technology sector of AI, building a workplace in which female talent thrives is especially important, as our customers are primarily women. Yet my personal work history is rooted in a much more male-dominated side of the AI industry – gaming. I started my career at a gaming startup in San Francisco where I was the first female engineer. I noticed a palpable difference when other female engineers slowly joined the team. The team dynamic changed immensely, including the team communication and strength of interpersonal connections.
At Lily AI, our initial focus on fashion and apparel within the retail space naturally attracted women to the team more easily than gaming. As we grew the company and hired more people, it became evident that having personal experiences with online shopping – whether as a male or female – brought an additional depth of understanding to the product, and the challenges of search and personalization on e-commerce sites. Still, while our styling team is most predominantly made up of women, our engineering team has taken the most concerted effort to find a gender balance. We try to be intentional about creating diversity through hiring, through our workplace culture, and in mentoring female engineers – and are currently at over 52% women on our full-time staff, a rarity within Silicon Valley.
From our experience in growing Lily AI, we’ve found there are three main elements to focus on to help promote gender diversity:
Inspire women studying engineering
In order to have enough female talent to create gender diversity in engineering companies across the country, encouraging girls and women while they are still in school is key. Social influences still steer some girls out of STEM, and that cultural discouragement can be counteracted by showcasing female trailblazers, especially in fields like AI. We try to get out into the community, speaking to young girls and college students, offering internships and making ourselves visible as women in AI.
Encourage career growth through mentorship
Through both formal and informal mentorship programs, it is essential to be intentional about nurturing female engineers’ career paths. It is pivotal to not only hire women into AI teams, but to ensure they have the resources they need to reach leadership positions.
Create a culture that provides equal opportunities
In addition to paying women equal wages for equal work, prioritizing workplace benefits like flexible hours, remote work, and showcasing a track record of successful maternity leave is essential. My co-founder is currently on her own maternity leave, intentionally setting an example for the women and men at our company that this time away is not just offered, but encouraged, and that having a family does not stunt your career path at Lily.
There is still much work to be done in creating not only gender diversity in AI, but also a broader range of racial and social diversity within the tech industry at large. I am encouraged by progress we’ve made, such as currently having such brilliant women leaders on our board like Maha Ibrahim, Vanessa Larco and Marigay McKee. These women in leadership are an inspiration to me, and will hopefully be beacons to other female talent across industries.
Sowmiya Narayanan is the co-founder and CTO of Lily AI. She previously worked in technology leadership and software engineering roles at Box, Pocket Gems, Yahoo! and Texas Instruments, and has a Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin.
