When women turn to artificial intelligence for career guidance, they may encounter recommendations drastically different from those given to their male counterparts. A recent investigation reveals that AI systems systematically advise lower salary baselines for women, nudging them instead toward flexible scheduling and caregiving perks. Conversely, men receive loftier compensation targets centered strictly on financial remuneration and professional advancement.

The study's authors examined roughly 86,000 automated responses through a pair of distinct evaluations. The initial trial queried a GPT model regarding negotiation strategies for hypothetical marketing leads, IT directors, and management consultants, explicitly stating the candidate's gender. A second, more expansive test utilized four distinct AI systems, injecting gender cues implicitly through traditional given names and pronouns. Apart from these markers, the candidates' professional credentials, history, and conditions remained identical.

Specifically, the models were tasked with proposing salary targets and ranking 25 employment perks—such as equity incentives, remote hours, and family leave—based on their negotiation priority. Authored by investigators from Harvard and MIT, the working paper has been published on arXiv and SSRN ahead of peer review.

AI Suggests Higher Salary Targets For Men

Every single one of the four evaluated AI architectures advocated for substantially elevated pay goals for men. Anthropic's Claude exhibited the starkest discrepancy, proposing nearly $16,000 more for male profiles. OpenAI's GPT suggested an approximate $2,700 premium, while Google's Gemini and Meta's Llama displayed narrower disparities.

Analyzing generative AI remains a moving target due to rapid technological cycles, meaning tested iterations can drift by publication. However, the evaluation featured recent systems, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.4-mini and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6, alongside Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash and Meta’s Llama 3.3 70B.

Across the evaluated professions, the monetary gender gap peaked within management consulting, where male candidates were advised to seek $5,370 more than women. Marketing roles registered a $1,110 variance, while IT director positions showed a $745 gap.

AI Steers Women Toward Flexibility, Men Toward Money

Equally concerning is how the algorithms funneled users down divergent career paths. Female profiles were systematically steered toward remote options, flexible hours, and family leave. Male profiles, on the other hand, received directions favoring equity stakes, pay bumps, relocation aid, and severance packages.

Generating recommendations based on the characteristics of the group to which a user is assigned rather than on information provided by the individual is a form of discrimination.

To determine if these patterns mirrored legacy social norms, the researchers polled 500 individuals regarding which job perks they linked to primary earners versus caregivers. The terms prioritized for women aligned directly with caregiving perceptions, whereas male-prioritized terms mirrored traditional breadwinning associations.

How AI Could Reinforce Gender Roles

This automated guidance carries tangible consequences for lifetime earnings and career trajectories. While flexibility appeals to professionals regardless of gender, presuming an individual's priorities based on demographic markers can distort what users view as attainable or worthwhile. The researchers caution that AI-generated advice actively shapes career horizons.

The systemic issue extends beyond directing women away from wealth accumulation; it equally discourages men from caregiving pursuits. By hardcoding assumptions that female professionals prioritize domestic duties while men focus strictly on earnings, these algorithms risk cementing archaic limitations for all workers.

Compounding this is the direct disparity in pay recommendations. If professionals adopt these automated salary figures, the technology risks further entrenching the persistent gender pay gap.

While personalization remains a core promise of automated tools, biased outputs mean female professionals should weigh alternative advisory channels. Although the study's authors do not outline a definitive workaround for utilizing AI career assistants, their findings imply that users might benefit from cross-referencing AI outputs against recommendations generated for an equivalently qualified male profile.