Abigail Merrill was dressed in a bright vermillion suit, her smile infectious, her voice inviting—but the statistic that she opened the conference with was what ultimately drew the air out of the room.
“According to the Harvard Business Review, women are nearly 25% less likely than men to adopt GenAI tools across sectors and regions.”
This was the beginning of the “AI for Women” conference hosted by the Center for Practical AI. Held at the American Underground’s newly opened American Tobacco Campus venue, the conference was packed with visitors from all walks of life and professional backgrounds. Indeed, attendance reached capacity, with Merrill mentioning she still had people emailing her about squeezing in.
In 2026, AI-centric conferences are a dime a dozen as artificial intelligence spearheads the newest innovations in tech, and the events tend to be similarly shaped—revolving around the newest startups being pitched or talks about how AI can be delegated to do the work of entire teams.
This conference, however, aimed to take a different approach.
Kenyetta Hall, Principal Consultant at The Katalyst HQ and Professor in Practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, led the opening talk alongside Merrill. Hall emphasized from the beginning what would set the event apart from others entirely: “AI only helps deliver. We’re here to strategically think about how to use AI, not just the hype.”
The conference’s goal was to inform women, regardless of their respective industries, on how to optimize workflows utilizing AI. Broadly, speakers talked about the extreme rate at which AI is developing and argued that as that development continues, women are particularly well positioned to lead conversations about ethical AI usage.
Panel of Power
Shortly after Hall and Merrill spoke, Erica Anderson Rooney took center stage. Rooney is the founder of women’s leadership community HER Collective and authored the book The AI Gap: Women, AI, and the Next Great Leap Forward, and was on hand to moderate a panel on the “State of AI for Women” (which also delved into some practical advice for strategic implementation of AI).
The panel was comprised of three women with diverse professional backgrounds: Sarah Egan Warren, a teaching assistant professor who holds a doctorate in her field and specializes in ethical data storytelling; Sunita McCoy, head of quality engineering at Yum! Brands; and Crystal Pitts, chief information security officer for the North Carolina Department of Commerce’s Division of Employment Security.
Rooney emphasized that the gap in AI usage tools comes from a difference in approach and attitude.
“The women in this room have never had a competence problem,” Rooney said. “But the men get the nudge, and the men get the bread.”
Professor Warren chimed in to discuss how when it comes to certification and credentials training, she sees a majority of women appearing to attend workshops.
According to McCoy, women leaders in tech often have to ask the harder questions. Her team utilizes GenAI tools and found a 30-40% increase in productivity—but the members of that team must verify their work before sending it off, emphasizing that in the age of AI workflow, human verification remains a premium.
Similarly, Pitts said that in government work, her team avoids inputting private information and social security into AI systems, noting that as AI optimizes data entry, specific guardrails have to be enforced to protect security.
Show and Share Sessions
Throughout the day, several entrepreneurs had the chance to talk about how they utilize AI in their ventures. Here’s a rundown of some of the most interesting and valuable insights they had to offer:
Jessica Veronica Couch, Founder of Looks AI and Luxor & Finch, talked about how “dead data” is the past, and that a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data can help tell the right stories in the fashion industry.
Katie-Gray Jackson, Chief of Staff for Lenovo’s Product Design and Innovation, said that while AI generates options, humans generate meaning. (It was one of several statements that spoke, in one way or another, to AI as enhancement rather than replacement.)
Una Stevenson, Chief Operations Officer of Pinno Marketing, noted that “AI is a thought partner, it is not your brain.” Stevenson emphasized that in order to produce powerful results with GenAI, critical thinking still has to come first.
Dr. Saundra Wall Williams continued this thought in her own speaking session, stating that “AI may be powered by data, but it must still be governed by wisdom.”
Women who attended the event drew immediate value from what these and other speakers had to contribute. To that point, McKinney Coaching and Consulting’s Aline Kehoe shared the following:
“There are just so many tools out there and everybody’s heavily relying on that without putting their unique touch to it… I feel like one of the challenges with AI in communication is being able to find a balance between creating something very robust, but with a human touch that AI can’t provide—no matter how many prompts you give it.”
There is never a single prevailing takeaway from a full day of conversation, but those comments touched on perhaps the closest thing to it: that while women have been less likely to adopt AI, we are well positioned across industries to do so on top of the expertise and human touches that make it most effective.
