Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers transformative potential for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), yet little is known about how women-owned SMEs practically adopt these technologies. This exploratory study examines three women-owned SMEs that publicly report using AI, mapping their lived experiences to themes in the literature (gendered barriers, staged adoption, and ethical/inclusive design). Data were gathered from publicly available articles and podcasts and analysed using thematic coding. We find that the cases predominantly used AI for operational efficiency, strategic decision-making and creative support; explicit discussion of gendered barriers and ethical AI was limited in public accounts. We discuss implications for policy, capacity building and future empirical work, and call for in-depth interviews and longitudinal research to capture under-reported challenges and design needs.

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