Mr. David Lee:

One of the roles I have within PwC is that I sponsor our inclusion and diversity from a gender perspective. This is always a challenge from a STEM perspective, where women are significantly under-represented. In some of the research we carried out last year on the perceived likely impact of, or attitude towards, GenAI among women, they are less optimistic than men about the impact of AI on their careers. Currently, among the people who are skilled in AI, our research shows 22% are female. If we look at the cohort of people who are making the decisions on the application of that technology, such as the CIO and CTO population in the US, 8% are female. We need to recognise that in the context of what we are doing from an educational perspective as well such that we will engage early in the system with everybody regardless of gender or socioeconomic background. It would be a disappointing outcome if the adoption of GenAI just accentuated existing problems. That would be an interesting perspective in the context of the think tank Ms O’Meara mentioned to make sure we can do something innovative in that space that uses an opportunity to bridge that gap rather than widen it.