Access Creates Opportunity: How Leaders Can Help Reignite Women's Progress at Work
Part of a series | Women@Work Series
Women@Work panelists highlighted a paradox: real progress alongside real setbacks. Sponsorship (access) beats mentorship (advice), but it requires more male allies as senior women grow scarcer. With few women in AI/ML, new tools risk embedding old biases, making data tracking and careful validation essential.
Key takeaways
Women@Work panelists highlighted a key paradox: organizations are making progress while still facing persistent setbacks in advancing women at work.
Sponsorship, which creates access to opportunities, can be more impactful than mentorship alone, but requires stronger allyship as the number of senior women leaders declines.
As women remain underrepresented in AI and machine learning roles, organizations must prioritize data tracking and validation to help prevent new technologies from reinforcing existing biases.
A central theme of ADP's annual Women@Work summit is increasing opportunities for women in the workplace. One of the sessions from the sixth annual virtual event zeroed in on access as a foundational piece of the future of women at work. In a discussion titled "Reigniting momentum: Advancing women’s progress with purpose and possibility," panelists explored how to transform stalled progress into a powerful launchpad for meaningful, lasting advancement.
Why progress feels both real and uneven
The conversation opened with a candid look at the data. Board representation has climbed substantially over the past several years, moving from roughly a quarter of public company board seats held by women to closer to a third. But panelists were quick to note that this momentum has cooled and the numbers alone don't tell the full story.
That tension came up repeatedly throughout the session. “There is a high demand for anybody with certain skill sets and capabilities in the market,” said Stacey Harris, chief research officer and managing partner owner at Sapient Insights Group. “This paradox on the labor side is playing out at multiple levels with different groups of people with different demographics."
Layoffs have disproportionately affected women and caregivers even as demand for skilled talent has never been higher. Women are starting new businesses at record rates, yet far fewer of those businesses go on to become employers themselves. The through line, panelists agreed, is that gains in one area don't automatically translate into gains everywhere. Women are clearly making headway, but they continue to run into barriers that prevent that headway from compounding into something larger.
Sponsorship as a pathway to opportunity
If there was one theme that dominated the discussion, it was sponsorship. Panelists distinguished it sharply from mentorship: where mentorship offers advice, sponsorship offers access — to budgets, to high-visibility projects and to the rooms where decisions get made. The data shared during the session showed that women are still less likely than their male peers to receive that kind of advocacy, particularly when it comes to funding and resource ownership.
Several panelists spoke from personal experience, crediting specific sponsors inside their organizations for the moments that propelled their careers forward. “Sponsorships make a difference,” said Harris. “I can't tell you how many times it's been the person who hired me inside the organization who made sure that we got to the next level oftentimes."
That personal testimony reinforced a broader point: as women rise through leadership ranks, the pool of available female sponsors naturally shrinks, which makes the involvement of male allies essential rather than optional. The panel was clear that closing the sponsorship gap requires leaders across every demographic to actively extend opportunity and visibility to people who might otherwise be overlooked.
Learn more about creating positive employee experiences for better business outcomes
Why access matters in an AI-driven future
As the conversation turned to artificial intelligence, the stakes of the access conversation came into sharper focus. Panelists pointed to a troubling gap: while interest in AI careers is growing, the percentage of women earning degrees in machine learning and authoring AI research remains strikingly low. That underrepresentation impacts more than the talent pipeline — it shapes who has a hand in building the technology that will define the next era of work.
The gender gap in AI usage rates may be related: ADP Research's People at Work 2026 report found that men use AI more frequently than women, with 18% of men saying they use AI every day compared to 13% of women.
The panel framed this as a question bigger than leadership representation alone. It's about who is in the room when products are designed, when algorithms are trained and when decisions are made about how AI gets deployed inside organizations. Left unaddressed, that imbalance risks embedding old biases into new systems. Panelists also noted that AI carries real potential to either narrow long-standing gaps or quietly widen them, and the outcome depends entirely on who has a seat at the table as these tools are built and adopted.
Practical ways organizations can expand access and advancement opportunities
The discussion closed with concrete, actionable guidance. One recurring idea was the outsized power of small structural changes. Panelists pointed out that something as simple as a single new question on an internal form or process can shift how an organization thinks and operates, often more effectively than a sweeping policy change. The lesson: systems and processes, not just intentions, are where lasting change takes root.
On the technology front, panelists urged organizations rolling out AI tools to validate outcomes carefully, comparing results generated with AI against those produced through traditional methods to ensure the technology isn't introducing new bias even as it improves efficiency. And underlying every recommendation was a call for stronger data practices: organizations need accessible, consistently tracked data on who is advancing, who is being sponsored and who has access to opportunity because that visibility is what makes informed decision making possible. “Data tells your story,” said Harris. “I always tell people: make sure you've got your data and it is accessible and always being tracked. It will help you make your best decisions.”
Moving forward with purpose
The session made clear that reigniting momentum for women at work won't happen through representation goals alone. It requires deliberately expanding access to sponsorship, to skills, to technology and to the decisions that shape how organizations grow. As AI continues to reshape the workplace, that access will determine whether the technology becomes a tool for equity or another barrier to it.
Watch the full recording and explore other free sessions from the Women@Work 2026 virtual summit.
