New data from LinkedIn has found a significant underrepresentation of women hired into recent artificial intelligence jobs, particularly among leadership roles.
Although women represented 50 percent of hires into non-AI positions, they accounted for just 26 percent of U.S. AI hires in 2025, suggesting women do not have the same access as men to one of the labor market’s fast-growing and highest-paying fields. AI job posts on LinkedIn have doubled since 2023, and AI roles typically pay double the compensation of non-AI roles ($177,000 versus $80,000). Among specific positions, women represented 20 percent of head of AI jobs, 26 percent of director of AI jobs, and 18 percent of technical staff jobs.
This significant underrepresentation of women in the overall AI workforce has led to what the LinkedIn research team describes as a “triple penalty” facing women in AI leadership. Women’s overall share in AI roles is 10 percentage points lower than their share of non-AI roles. And women’s share of the workforce is some 5 percentage points lower at AI firms than at comparable non-AI firms. At the C-suite level, the gender gap in AI is some 15 percentage points wider than for roles below the executive level. Today, women hold just 13 percent of AI C-suite roles at AI companies.