Women deserve futures not defined by the algorithm

For International Women’s Day 2025, we posed a simple question to three different AI models: What does the future look like for women?

The answers we received were anything but revolutionary.

One imagined a steampunk drawing room, where women were confined to romanticised domesticity. Another offered a corporate catwalk, where success was reduced to a pencil skirt and power pose. A third envisioned a pastel utopia, accessorised with flowers and science, curated by housewives.

These aren’t futures. They’re fantasies filtered through outdated data.

The Problem Isn’t Just the Output—It’s the Input

Six years ago, Caroline Criado Perez published Invisible Women, a groundbreaking book that exposed the gender data gap—the many ways women are excluded from the systems, structures, and datasets that shape our world.

Today, that gap is being hard-coded into the future.

AI doesn’t imagine new possibilities. It reflects the biases of the data it’s trained on. And when women are missing from that data, they’re missing from the future too.

Why This Matters for Brands, Designers, and Innovators

AI is already shaping everything from product development to advertising, healthcare to hiring. If the systems we build are trained on biased data, they will amplify exclusion—not solve it.

And if we’re not actively questioning the cultural assumptions embedded in AI, we risk designing futures that are narrow, stereotyped, and deeply unequal.

Key Takeaways for Brands

Representation in data is not optional — it’s foundational.

If women aren’t present in the data, they won’t be present in the future your brand is helping to build.

AI is a mirror, not a crystal ball.

It reflects the past more than it predicts the future. Use it critically, not passively.

Challenge the default.

If AI-generated content feels stereotypical or reductive, it probably is. Ask who’s missing—and why.

Design with, not just for.

Involve diverse voices in shaping the tools, narratives, and futures your brand creates.

Futures not confined to drawing rooms, corporate catwalks, or pastel utopias. Futures not defined by the algorithmic gaze. If AI is going to shape the world ahead, it must be built with inclusion, imagination, and intention.

Because a future that doesn’t include women’s voices isn’t a future worth building.