What you probably already know: Young women are skeptical of AI career tools, largely because they believe the technology is biased against them. The Trust Gap Report, a national survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults conducted by Ruth AI and The Harris Poll, highlights a stark divide between women and men between the ages of 18 and 45 in their trust and adoption of AI. Young men are much more likely to use AI across every metric measured, including for career and salary advice, during a job search, for updating their resume or as a personal career coach.
Why it matters: “Young women use AI less, trust it less and are nearly twice as likely to say they already knew it could low-ball them,” says Valerie Chapman, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Ruth AI, an AI-driven career strategy company built for women. “Independent researchers have found leading models telling women to ask for less money. The women in this survey weren’t surprised.” Overall, 45% of U.S. adults have already used AI for career or work advice, with millennials “the power users.” One in three have used AI to help them negotiate a salary, a raise or a bonus.
What it means: Twenty-seven percent of young women say they were “not at all surprised” by AI pay bias, while 41% expressed anger after learning of salary discrepancies, compared to only 25% of men. Eighty percent support policies and guardrails to protect against biased AI. The report notes that several academic studies have uncovered AI bias that recommends lower salaries to women, adding that the findings are, at their core, a workplace equity issue. “The answer is not for women to trust AI less,” Chapman says. “It is to build AI that earns it.”
What happens next: Surprisingly, 76% of all respondents had never heard that AI can provide biased career and salary guidance. Even among heavy users, 72% agree that AI can sound confident even when its advice turns out to be incorrect. “Americans are handing AI some of the most consequential decisions of their working lives,” says Chapman, who founded Ruth AI in December 2025. “We are delegating faster than we are asking questions. The responsibility now falls on the people building AI to earn the trust users are already giving it.”
