Digital Agency for Women: Beyond Access in the Age of AI
CARE
Session 396
Keeping it real
Digital inclusion is often framed as a question of access. But access alone is not the goal. The real goal is digital agency: whether women can use digital technologies in ways that strengthen their voice, safety, confidence, and ability to act in the world. As AI gains attention globally, discussions often swing between alarm and optimism. Missing from the middle are the practical examples of how AI is already helping women in low- and middle-income countries navigate online risks, access trusted information in low-resource settings, and engage with digital systems in ways that are more relevant to their lives. We will offer some of the pragmatic approaches that CARE is using to put AI to work in the service of women who have traditionally been on the far side of the gender digital divide. Where are these efforts showing promise, and where are they just a new technology approach to evergreen issues?
This session will examine the current state of women’s digital inclusion and offer a grounded perspective on AI as both a challenge and an opportunity. It will focus particular attention on the ways AI can support rural women NOW: by making information more accessible across language, literacy, and connectivity barriers; by improving safety and trust in digital spaces -- but is the implementation living up the promise? Let's have an open, honest conversation about moving from access to agency, the state of AI tools today, external trends and timelines in AI development that affect AI's use and adoption, and how to engage rural and low-income women into the planning and deployment process -- hopefully with the lessons we learned through internet and device proliferation over the past decades.
The promise of local-language LLMs, safer online spaces that are built with safety-by-design principles, and leapfrogging the internet economy into the AI economy are exciting in the halls, but are we months or years from AI that addresses real on-the-ground issues faced by millions of women? What are you personally witnessing? What are early results in trying to bring AI to the populations we hope it will most dramatically serve? Please come with examples, hard questions, and open minds. Is AI ready to boost women's agency the way we think it can? Are we months or years away from the promise, and what needs to change, with urgency, to realize the potential?
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C3. Access to information and knowledge
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C4. Capacity building
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C5. Building confidence and security in use of ICTs
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C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content
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C10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society
This session directly supports the implementation of several WSIS Action Lines by examining how AI can advance meaningful digital inclusion for women beyond basic connectivity. Rather than focusing on AI as an emerging technology alone, the discussion emphasizes practical approaches that strengthen women's digital agency—the ability to safely, confidently, and effectively use digital technologies to improve their lives.
Action Line C3 – Access to Information and Knowledge
The session explores how AI can reduce longstanding barriers to accessing trusted information by expanding local-language capabilities, supporting low-literacy users, and functioning in low-connectivity environments. Through real-world examples, participants will examine where AI is already improving access to information for rural and low-income women, and where significant gaps remain.
Action Line C4 – Capacity Building
Building meaningful digital inclusion requires more than digital skills training. The session focuses on strengthening women's confidence, autonomy, and ability to engage with AI-enabled technologies while emphasizing participatory approaches that involve women in the planning, design, deployment, and evaluation of AI systems. This reflects a shift from technology adoption toward long-term digital empowerment.
Action Line C5 – Building Confidence and Security in the Use of ICTs
Women continue to experience online harms that limit meaningful participation in digital spaces. The discussion will examine how AI can both improve and undermine online safety, highlighting promising approaches such as safety-by-design, trusted digital services, and AI tools that help women navigate digital risks while acknowledging the new threats AI also introduces. The session encourages an evidence-based discussion of what is working today and what requires further innovation.
Action Line C7 – ICT Applications
The session presents practical examples of AI applications that are already being tested to improve access to information, services, livelihoods, and community participation for women in low- and middle-income countries. Rather than focusing on future possibilities alone, it critically examines implementation experiences, lessons learned, and the conditions required for AI to generate meaningful development outcomes.
Action Line C8 – Cultural Diversity and Identity, Linguistic Diversity and Local Content
A central theme of the session is ensuring that AI reflects the linguistic and cultural realities of the populations it seeks to serve.
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Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
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Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
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Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
SDG 4 – Quality Education
AI has the potential to make knowledge, learning opportunities, and digital skills more accessible to women and girls through local-language interfaces, adaptive learning, and tools that overcome barriers related to literacy, language, and connectivity. The session explores how AI can support lifelong learning and digital capability development while recognizing that meaningful participation requires confidence, trust, and relevant content—not simply access to technology.
SDG 5 – Gender Equality
The session is fundamentally grounded in advancing gender equality by moving beyond measures of connectivity toward women's ability to safely and meaningfully participate in digital society. It examines how AI can help reduce barriers created by restrictive social norms, limited access to information, online gender-based violence, and exclusion from digital decision-making, while emphasizing the importance of designing AI systems with women rather than for women.
SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities
The discussion focuses on ensuring that AI does not widen existing digital and socioeconomic inequalities. Participants will examine practical approaches to making AI accessible and asks what must change to ensure that AI narrows, rather than deepens, existing disparities.
- Objective 1: Close all digital divides and accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals
- Objective 2: Expand inclusion in and benefits from the digital economy for all