Beyond a Neutral Tool or Teammate: Envisioning AI Interventions for Women's Equity in Male-Dominated Teams

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping team collaboration in workplaces. Meanwhile, women only represent 22% of the global AI workforce, raising questions about whose perspectives drive AI design. This dual reality makes the stakes high: without critical attention, AI may entrench existing gendered dynamics; but with deliberate design, it may open new avenues for equity. Through in-depth interviews with 30 AI professionals (22 women), our work both confirms gendered challenges in male-dominated teams and offers a novel contribution: how those who directly experience these dynamics envision AI’s role in mitigating them. These practitioner-informed design visions reveal AI’s potential of offering multi-level support and empowering women to navigate these teams, and its risks of reinforcing stereotypes and surveillance. We call on the HCI community to explore this emerging design space for equitable human-AI teaming while critically attending to gendered power dynamics.