Girls and AI: How to prepare your girls for the future of work

The world that girls are growing up into is being reshaped by AI, faster than most of us can track. We don’t know exactly what workplaces will look like when today’s teenage girls reach adulthood. But here at LeanIn.Org, we continue to believe that the things we’ve always wanted for girls — the curiosity to ask hard questions, the empathy to lead well, the confidence to take up space — are not going to be less important in an AI world. They’ll be more important. And we want girls not just to navigate what’s coming, but to play a leading role in shaping it.

I’m a mother of four, and I believe deeply that those character traits will stay valuable for my kids as they join the workforce in the AI era. But I’ve also read the news about the jobs AI is displacing. I sometimes lie awake worrying about what my children will do in the AI age. I know I’m not alone.

So I’ve done what I always do when I’m anxious: I started researching. I learned which fields will grow and shrink in the next 10–15 years so that I can share that information with my own kids. Here’s what I’ve learned:

Why are women being left out of AI’s upside?

The numbers are stark. Of the 6.1 million U.S. workers whose jobs are most likely to be disrupted by AI, 86% are women — roles like administrative assistants, receptionists, and office clerks. These may sound like dated stereotypes of “jobs for women,” but they reflect a reality: women are still frequently siloed into support and administrative roles, the jobs AI will automate first. Women in high-income countries are also nearly three times more likely than men to work in jobs with greater exposure to AI automation.

All of this means that girls who choose fields with lower automation risk — and build genuine AI fluency alongside that — are in a fundamentally better position than those who don’t.

Which careers should my girl pursue in the age of AI?

No one can predict exactly which jobs will exist in ten years. But the pattern from labor economists and AI researchers is consistent: the roles most resistant to automation combine technical fluency with human judgment.

• Engineering. Across most engineering disciplines, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects faster-than-average job growth through 2034 — and physical, safety-critical work remains among the hardest to automate. Mechanical engineering is projected to grow 9% and environmental engineering 7%. The clean energy transition is driving demand across multiple disciplines: electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineers are all central to building the infrastructure that renewable energy requires. Women are underrepresented in almost all of these fields, which means the opportunity — and the need — are real.
• Healthcare. This field offers two distinct paths. For girls drawn to direct patient care, the outlook is strong: nurse practitioners are projected to grow 40% between 2023 and 2034, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and roles requiring human empathy, physical care, and ethical judgment are widely considered among the most automation resistant in the economy.
  The second path is designing healthcare AI itself. Seventy-one percent of U.S. hospitals have already implemented predictive AI models, and the demand for people who can build, audit, and manage those systems — with both technical skills and medical knowledge — is growing fast. A girl interested in medicine who also builds AI literacy is positioned for roles that didn’t exist a decade ago.
• Climate and sustainability. The engineering roles in the climate space are covered above, but the field extends further. LinkedIn’s 2025 green skills analysis identifies fast-growing nontechnical roles in climate finance, environmental reporting, carbon accounting, and climate policy — all of which combine data fluency with environmental knowledge and sit inside mainstream employers across every sector. For girls already motivated by environmental causes, there are multiple ways in that don’t require an engineering degree.
• Data science and machine learning. The BLS projects that data scientist roles will grow 34% by 2034 — one of the fastest growth rates of any occupation — driven largely by demand for AI development and data analysis across industries. The opportunity is at the higher-skill end: girls who build strong foundations in statistics, math, and machine learning will be well-positioned and will enter a field where women remain significantly underrepresented.
• AI ethics and policy. As governments scramble to regulate AI, demand is growing fast for people who can think rigorously about fairness, rights, and accountability. Research from Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology found that more than 100,000 professionals with expertise in AI ethics and governance are now requested by employers annually — and that number is rising. This field sits at the intersection of law, philosophy, and technology, and it’s wide open.
• Leadership skills with value in many fields: McKinsey research predicts that demand for social and emotional skills — empathy, judgment, and leadership — will rise significantly as AI takes on more routine work. These skills are hard to automate and hard to teach at scale. They are also exactly the skills we work to build in girls ages 11 to 17 via the Lean In Girl program.

Why every parent should care about girls and AI

I want my kids to spend their lives in workplaces with more women taking the lead. Women deserve to be there, and the evidence shows it makes the world better: women leaders drive stronger outcomes across financial performance, ethics, innovation, and organizational culture.

That future is personal to me — and it starts with the girls who are in middle and high school right now, and the adults in their lives who show up for them.