The Power of AI Done Well: Women as disruptors
In our last post, we explored what needs to change in order to make responsible AI the norm not the exception. We looked at shifts in mindset, language, leadership, and design that can drive AI away from harm and toward lasting, inclusive impact.
But none of that change happens on its own. It takes people especially those willing to challenge the status quo, reimagine systems, and lead with both conviction and care.
This tenth installation of The Power of AI Done Well celebrates women as disruptors. Not in the noisy, headline-chasing sense, but as quiet revolutionaries, builders, thinkers, and advocates who are reshaping the field of AI by daring to do things differently.
What do you mean by “disruptor”?
A disruptor, from the latin disrumpere, is in all but one sense a negatively connotated term. To forcibly separate or break apart, to hinder or to set off course: to be a disruptor usually gives a sense of unease, of being shaken out of a comfortable situation. In 1995, centuries after the first apparitions of the word “disrupt”, the academic and business consultant Clayton Christensen coined what The Economist labeled “the most influential business idea of the 21st century,” the idea of disruptive innovation, or the first and only positively connotated type of disruption.
Following this new definition, disruptors are generally entrepreneurs, leaders in the business world that “change the traditional way an industry operates, especially in a new and effective way” as the Cambridge Dictionary puts it. For the last 13 years, American business news channel CNBC has issued the Disruptor 50 list each year, which announces the 50 most innovative companies of the year. This is done following a set of strict criteria. In the last three years, the list has seen tech giants spearheading the AI revolution rise to prominence, with defense technology company Anduril taking the lead in 2025, a victory that speaks volumes about our times. Yet out of the 50 CEOs driving the success of these companies, only six are women. Considering that only around 20% of startups worldwide have at least one female founder, this fact is, unfortunately, hardly surprising. Yet it also reveals a general perception of women as disruptors, usually with a negative sense. What do we mean by this? Let us travel back in time.
A Historical Perspective…
As a child, especially perhaps as a little girl, you may have learned about, and marveled at, the incredible story of Joan of Arc. It is a tale of strength and courage, of sacrifice and devotion. In 1428, Joan of Arc left the peace of her family farm, cut her hair, and dressed as a man to join the ranks of the French army and lead them to victory over the English invasion. Her incredible faith, bravery, and defiance of traditional gender roles in pursuit of a cause she believed to be greater than those earned her canonisation 500 years later, in 1920. However, in the direct aftermath of the French victories she had led, however, her disruption of traditional gender roles resulted in her being burned at the stake.
A few hundred years down the line, one would still not see female generals leading soldiers in the battlefield, but women did start claiming their rightful, equal, space in society. Slowly but surely, at the end of the 19th century, more and more countries were granting women their right to vote. When women’s suffrage had still not been introduced at the start of the 20th century, women in the UK formed the Women's Social and Political Union, more famously known as The Suffragettes, a designation originally intended to mock their demands. Their disruption of traditional ways was not, as it is now, perceived as a new and effective change. It was seen as a disruption of public order.
Still a few decades later, in the late 60s, women were generally allowed to vote and the Women’s Liberation Movement was starting to take shape in various parts of the world. Yet women’s place among men was still perceived by many as unnatural and reprehensive. For example, the first woman to officially run the Boston marathon, Kathrine Switzer, was assaulted by the race manager. This man, believing in the traditional vision of the marathon as a male endeavor, saw her presence not as a disruptive innovation but as a disruption, period. The first woman to unofficially run the Boston marathon just one year earlier, Bobbi Gibb, was not even acknowledged by the race director Will Cloney because there “is no such thing as a marathon for women”.
That Is Still Observed Today
Some might argue that these examples are outdated, and even argue that today we can only praise the positive disruption these women brought about. Indeed, women have certainly claimed more space. However, the taking of that space is still widely viewed as a negative disruption. The second Trump Administration’s efforts to shut down diversity and inclusion (DEI) programmes across public institutions and universities are a clear example of this. In this administration’s eyes, giving space to female talent (among others!), does not imply giving space to innovation by moving away from traditional male-dominated perspectives. Instead it is seen as a hindrance to “merit and excellence”, suggesting a theoretical incompatibility between the two concepts.
Perhaps more positively, the Financial Times survey investigating perceived trust in male versus female experts shows that, overall, female experts are generally considered more credible than their male counterparts. This is an interesting contradiction to expectations until the reason for this increased trust is analyzed. According to the study, if a female expert is considered more credible than a male expert, it is because it is assumed that she had to work harder to achieve this status. In other words, women have had to disrupt in a negative sense, breaking apart the glass ceiling, to earn the respect they are now given.
From Negative to Positive Disruptors
And it is true, women can be disruptors, but in a positive sense too. Think of Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Joan Clarke, for example, or any of the pioneering members of our She Shapes AI community. They have all forged new paths, and introduced innovations that are positively transforming their industries. Female disruptors are everywhere, and they have huge impacts. Even in AI, an area in which women are significantly underrepresented, as our policy brief demostrates, women around the world are already shaping the future in new, efficient, and lasting ways. Here are three reasons why.
Disrupting the Perpetuation of Bias
The first reason is connected to one simple yet powerful concept: bias. We all seem to agree that bias in AI is a problem. Whether for ethical reasons or productivity concerns, bias hinders progress and leads to poorly informed decisions and the propagation of stereotypes. However, as the results of an experiment led by the City of Amsterdam have shown, eliminating bias from AI is extremely difficult. The well-intentioned project aimed to adhere to strict guidelines and recommendations in order to develop a fair and unbiased decisionmaking algorithm that the city could use for the city’s fraud detection system. After five years of hard work, however, the city gave up: despite all their efforts, the algorithm was still not fit for such crucial tasks.
Whatever this might say about the use of decision-making algorithms for public services, the most important lesson here is that, much like invasive weeds, bias cannot be removed from the surface level; otherwise it will grow back. Bias needs to be pulverised at its roots. In other words, to eradicate bias, we need to look at ourselves and at our society which carry the biases found in our data.
This is where women come in. By bringing their unique perspectives, women are changing our society and the data that is born out of it. They are normalizing the association tech/woman and creating a space more and more representative of an equal and less biased society. In AI especially, we are far from being rid of our biases, but every woman who claims her space there contributes to the disruption of a traditional and inefficient production of data in a new and effective way.
Disrupting “innovating for innovation”
But women are positively disrupting far beyond their impact on bias. When we asked our community members how women could generate transformative impact in AI, their responses echoed one another in a surprising unanimity. Oftentimes women, they say, tend to foster empathy, collaboration, and inclusiveness in their endeavors and bring a human-centered perspective to the problems they seek to solve. In fact, research shows that women tend to consider issues and avenues for innovation that are usually overlooked, especially in health and education. In AI, this means unlocking the power of AI done well. It means combining responsible thinking with innovative and sustainable solutions, disrupting away from a traditional and inefficient way of “innovating for innovation” towards a more effective way of “innovating with purpose”.
At She Shapes AI, our community is rich with disruptors who do exactly this. Nichole Sterling for instance, our AI & Democracy finalist, has created My Town AI, a company that helps small towns boost their public services and address problems such as affordable housing and urban planning thanks to AI. Rosalba Sotz, meanwhile, is using AI to detect and expose digital manipulation and abuse, and Ndipabonga Atanga has created Batazia, using AI to make books and learning tools accessible in over 20 African languages. All of these women, and many more, are disruptors. Their innovations are practical and user-centered, thus broadening their reach and impact, and they address existing needs rather than creating new ones.
Disrupting the Gender Gap
This, in turn, directly feeds into our third example of why women are disruptors in AI. Because broadening reach and enabling access also means giving marginalised populations the tools and resources to enter spaces they would otherwise be excluded from. Those populations include women, and those spaces include AI. More and more women in the AI space are thinking about what it takes to get to where they arrive and, importantly, what we can learn from it. In a recent Forbes article, Lauren Buitta, CEO and Founder of Girl Security, explores the more cautious and ethically minded relationship of women with AI. Her take on it? “Rather than insisting women engage with AI like men, a more evolved approach would examine how women’s usage patterns can inform new or complementary approaches to AI learning, education and training.”
Dr. Luise Frohberg, one of our community members, has put this idea into action. By creating Taara Quest, an immersive online universe using AI tools, she is helping women to join the tech community and supporting them to develop the right leadership skills. Through her actions, as through those of many others who advocate, educate, research, inspire, and enable, women in AI are essentially helping close the gender gap. And gender parity, as the World Economic Forum phrased it in its White Paper issued in March 2025, “can serve as a critical element to shape an AI transformation that brings the largest, fastest benefits to the broadest sectors of society”. Or to bring it back to our definition of disruption, closing the gender gap is changing the traditional way industries operate, from an inefficient and homogenous task force, to a diverse and effective talent pool at every level of leadership.
Be Heard and Disrupt
The circle is complete, and it is a virtuous circle too. If more women in AI means less bias and more inclusivity, which brings a broader reach and better training for women, which in turn means more women can start using and shaping AI then we have got the key to leading an incredible (positive) disruption. In the words of our AI & Thought Leadership finalist, Dr. Emily Springer: “the key is raising our hands, claiming space, and making AI work for everyone, not just a select few. Get in the game, grab some power, and change what history books say about the 4th industrial age!”
What’s Next
Disruption, at its best, doesn’t just break what isn’t working. It builds what’s needed next. And our She Shapes AI community is full of women doing just that.
In the next post of this campaign, we turn to you.
Join us for Part 11: Ready to Shape AI? where we reflect on what we’ve learned, and invite all of us, regardless of background, expertise, or title, to step into our role in shaping a more human-centred, equitable AI future.
