F'innews: In Good Company
Feb 19th: Stanford recap, AI adoption gender gap & What researchers really think about AI (~4 minute read)
We’re looking forward to rounding out the winter with a few upcoming meetups!
We're planning meetups in NYC (March 5th!) and Seattle (late March/early April), continuing our tradition of bringing our community together for real conversations about the work we do and the changes we're navigating. Much of what we discussed at our February SF meetup inspired and is reflected in the pieces below.
If you’d like to RSVP for our next New York Meetup, click here.
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Stanford GSB x F’inn 2026
One of our F’inn traditions is working with Stanford University Graduate School of Business students on their market research projects.
We spent a day earlier this month in the classroom, working in teams with the students to sharpen their project’s focus and create an executable quantitative survey.
We appreciate the continued relationship with Stanford University, Navdeep Sahni and his students and the opportunity to share our many years of experience with those who are venturing into the business world.
And as a remote business, we welcome every moment which we get to spend time together.
What's Causing the AI Gender Gap?
Women are adopting AI assistants (agents / chatbots / etc.) at significantly lower rates than men. In our self-funded quarterly pulse research (in collaboration with Harmon Research), we asked ~700 Americans about their comfort level using AI assistants for various tasks like product recommendations, summarizing reviews, voice assistants, and shopping guidance. In every scenario tested, men were significantly more comfortable using AI assistants than women. The Harvard D³ Institute has found that women are ~20% less likely than men to engage with generative AI, regardless of geography or industry. There is also an employment gap, as only 22% of global AI professionals are women.
This isn’t new. We saw a similar gender divide in internet adoption back in 2000, when Pew Research found that 54% of men were internet users compared to 50% of women. At the time, the gap was attributed to men simply being early adopters and women lacking access.
So why does the AI gender gap exist?
The theories are expansive and largely speculative, spanning workplace culture, fear of judgment, ethical concerns, and general distrust. As Harvard Business School Associate Professor Rembrand Koning explains: “Women face greater penalties in being judged as not having expertise in different fields…They might be worried that someone would think even though they got the answer right, they ‘cheated’ by using ChatGPT.”
There’s also a deeper psychological dimension causing hesitancy for some women. AI assistants have been promoted as a way to delegate “administrative work” so we can focus on the “real” work. It takes over traditionally feminine tasks like organization, scheduling, advising, recommending and ultimately giving women the “ick.“ As Abi Awomosu argues: “The ‘ick’ is the recognition: That’s what I was. That’s what I did. Now it’s a product. And they’re calling it revolutionary.”
The case for moving slowly
There may be a second-mover advantage to women’s cautious approach. While AI assistants boost productivity, it can undermine intrinsic motivation. Four studies involving 3,500 participants found that when people completed professional tasks using AI assistants, they experienced an immediate performance boost, followed by an 11% drop in intrinsic motivation and a 20% increase in boredom. Those who worked without AI assistants maintained their normal motivational state throughout. Some heavy AI users have also recently reported early signs of burnout.
We’re hesitant to claim we know the singular reason for this adoption gap. What we can say is that people’s reasoning for or against using AI assistants is complex, their motivations are varied, and maybe the questions we should be asking are not who, but why is AI being adopted, what are we using it for, and how is it actually affecting us as human beings?
There’s no doubt that AI is here, and will play a significant role in our personal and work lives, however there also seems to be a case for clear boundaries and role definition.
“What I want: a robot that cleans my house while I do creative work. What tech bros want to give me: AI to do creative work while I clean the house. No thanks.”
AI can be friend or foe, helper or enemy, risk or opportunity - you decide…or your choice?
What’s on researcher’s minds when it comes to AI?
Earlier this month, F’inn hosted our Researcher / UX Community meet-up in San Francisco. At the start, we asked everyone to jot down their ‘top of mind’ word to describe their feelings towards AI. This ran the gamut from Infinite to Fear, and everything in between. The varied response set the tone for the night, with so many frictions and questions. We then prompted open and vulnerable discussions around our role evolution and goals in shaping the future in collaboration with AI.
What was clear is that we’re all experimenting, learning what’s possible and what the future looks like for us. We also realize there a lot of (over) promises and (inflated) expectations and we must use our voices to ensure humanity remains at the core of what we do.
Five (5) main themes emerged from the discussions:
Leadership pressure or even mandates to adopt AI
Level of trust and healthy skepticism of AI
Speed vs rigor is an inherent trade-off in research
AI striving for the middle, and washing out the extremes / polarization often critical in research
The exponential pace of change is exciting and disorienting
This conversation will continue, with next meet-ups being planned for NYC and Seattle and the Bay Area. If you’d like want to be on the invite list, DM us at F’inn
Click here to read Lisa’s full post!
