I’ve been covering the tech industry since I graduated from journalism school in 1998…yep, go ahead, I’ll give you a second to calculate my age.
So, it should come as no surprise to some that I grew up in a generation whose parents were taught that men were more valuable than women — just for being men — and they then, in turn, would pass that lesson down.
Over the decades, I’ve seen how this can impact a woman’s sense of worth and feed the needling self-doubt that can grow so incredibly burdensome, it’s difficult to shake even generations later.
In Singapore, for one, young women have already embraced artificial intelligence (AI) in their everyday life, but their confidence and leadership ambitions do not match their ability to use the technology, according to new research from United Women Singapore (UWS).
While 84% of women use AI tools at least once a week, including 37% who use them daily, just 6% feel very confident they will thrive in an AI-driven environment. In comparison, 16% of men say they feel very confident in an AI-driven environment.
This, despite the fact that 38% of women will use AI to support their work, higher than 30% of men who do so, the UWS study revealed.
The survey polled 800 students and young career starters, aged 16 to 29 in Singapore, of whom 640 were women and 160 were male. Released in partnership with Micron Foundation, the study was conducted by Milieu Insight in May and Jun this year.
Furthermore, 75% of women show a core foundational understanding of AI and fewer of them (at 25%) have misconceptions about AI, compared to men (34%). For example, more women, than men, recognise that AI can sound confident even when it is inaccurate.
However, even though 77% of women can perform basic AI tasks, just 8% view themselves as AI leaders or guides. In comparison, 20% of men see themselves as AI leaders.
Again, despite their use of and ability to understand AI, fewer women rate their AI proficiency as advanced, at 5%, compared to 12% of men who do so.
More telling, just 21% of women believe AI careers are equally open to both genders, compared to 50% of their male counterparts who think likewise.
Why the gap matters in AI
Describing the gaps as a “confidence paradox”, UWS notes that young women are fluent, frequent users of AI who understand it well, but few actually feel confident about their long-term place in an AI-driven future.
In 2021, LinkedIn’s Opportunity Index revealed that 41% of women in Asia-Pacific believed they received fewer opportunities to advance their career compared to men. This number was higher in some markets…49% in Singapore and 44% in China.
And one third felt their gender had been a barrier to opportunities due to a lack of guidance, skills, and time they faced as women.
That was five years ago. As the UWS study shows, it seems little has changed.
And there may be a reason for that.
In fact, September 2026 data from LinkedIn’s Economic Graph shows that women account for just 23% of C-suite roles, even though they make up 46% of workers at entry level.
Women hold just 19% of CEO roles, 24% of COO roles, and 27% of CFO roles. Fewer than one in five CIOs are women and lower than 9% of CTOs are women.
Their representation in top management has stayed the same for four consecutive years, after climbing to 29.6% in 2023 from 26.7% in 2015, LinkedIn notes.
The drop in female representation is biggest in transportation, construction, and technology, where representation dips by half.
At the current rate of progress, LinkedIn estimates it will take 90 years before leadership parity can be achieved.
This gap was previously expected to close within 50 years, based on advancements made leading up to 2020.
More worrying, women accounted for 26% of hires into AI roles in the US last year, compared with 50% of hires into non-AI positions.
Worldwide, they hold only 13% of C-suite AI leadership roles at AI companies, LinkedIn data reveals.
In addition, they account for 57% of executives in occupations deemed most likely to be disrupted by GenAI (generative AI), compared with 43% of men.
The findings indicate that women are underrepresented in roles that build, apply, and lead AI, and overrepresented in roles facing disruption, according to LinkedIn. It highlights the need to support high-performing women for advancement and invest in STEM, AI, and other fast-growing skills.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) in a June 2026 post also urged companies to look at how they can change the tide, particularly as many begin work to transform their workforce amidst increasing adoption of AI.
“Over the past decade, there have been gradual gains for women in corporate leadership. Yet the pace of progress is slowing and, in some areas, beginning to slip,” WEF said. “This comes at a pivotal moment for business.”
“AI, economic volatility, and demographic change are reshaping how organisations operate, compete, and lead,” it added. “As traditional career models and leadership structures evolve, companies have an opportunity to broaden the pathways to the top, rather than reproduce the patterns of the past.”
Change that must be seen
And the past cannot repeat itself here, especially as we’re still grappling with how we should manage the impact of AI, including new risks that already are emerging.
AI is changing how decisions are made in every sector, and the skills and confidence to use and shape AI increasingly will decide who gets access to future opportunities, said UWS’ chairperson Tan Ching Ne, during a launch event to discuss the study findings.
That’s why the gender gap in this field matters, Tan said.
A non-profit organisation that advocates women’s empowerment and gender equality, UWS runs programmes such as Girls2Pioneers STEM, which encourages young women to pursue careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
If women aren’t part of leading and building AI, societies risk building a future that does not represent half of their population, said Tan, who is a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Singapore
Things will change when young women get the right support and see themselves as part of this future, she said.
Confidence can be built, she added, so young women don’t just use these new tools, but also lead them.
Over the past almost three decades, I’ve interviewed my fair share of female executives, several of whom had rose through the ranks to lead their own teams.
I spoke to a couple earlier this year and we discussed the disappointing state of female representation in the tech industry today, despite decades of efforts to change this landscape.
They, too, had expressed their desire to fix this and set the right path for their children and future generations of female leaders.
One noted that it wasn’t enough to simply open doors for women to enter the workforce, but to also support those in leadership. She highlighted how there had been public backlash of companies that placed women in charge.
She, too, underscored the need for more female leadership and ensure better diversity across the industry, especially in AI, where there was still a lack of women in startups and research and academia.
One concrete way to address this is simply to have the tenacity to want to change things, she said.
One of the executives also pointed to both female and male leaders she worked with and from whom she learnt valuable lessons. She noted that women often would hesitate and want to be 100% sure before saying something, compared to their male counterparts who seldom would do that.
The latter took more risks and had a more aggressive mindset and the confidence to move forward, she said.
She pointed to her own female CEO, who made bold decisions and moved almost unapologetically.
The empathy that female tended to have can be an advantage and disadvantage, she said, noting that her CEO had made strategic decisions and was always clear about what the company needed to do. Her CEO would acknowledge the impact such decisions might have and took the time to explain why they had to be made.
One common trait I’ve also observed, and truly appreciate, amongst women in leadership is their humility. They are unafraid to acknowledge the mistakes they might make along the way and would learn from these to become better leaders.
One CXO expressed the doubt she once held after taking on a new role, deciding to go back into a classroom to earn another diploma, so she could learn new skills she felt she needed for that role.
Self-doubt doesn’t always have to be a drawback, because it can push us to identify any shortcoming and work to address it.
When you believe you already excel at everything you do, your ego will feel little need to seek improvement and better yourself.
The willingness to reflect and to always do better is a quality I often see in the female CXOs I meet.
And we need more of them in the industry.
More importantly, young women need to see these female tech leaders, so they feel better represented and gain the confidence that they, too, can one day lead their own teams.
