The power of artificial intelligence is unparalleled. With its ability to improve efficiency, boost productivity, and enhance customer experience, AI has the potential to transform every business across every industry. However, to ensure that solutions are ethical and serve every intended user equitably, diversity within AI development teams must be prioritised.  

Unfortunately, identifying and securing diverse AI talent is easier said than done. In the UK, only 25% of STEM university graduates are women, and a mere 8% of the STEM workforce comes from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic backgrounds.  

Building a diverse AI team requires intentional effort at every stage of the hiring process. To uncover diverse talent, companies must look beyond traditional sourcing methods. To reassure candidates that they’ll be respected, valued, and given the opportunity to thrive, they must also showcase their inclusivity during interviews. 

At Generative, we recognise that diversity is important not only for ethical AI development but also for improving a product’s competitiveness, sustainability, and customer reach. As AI recruitment specialists, we have the power to improve dire statistics and help companies tackle diversity-based issues right at the source. Under our watch, AI teams worldwide will be full of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.   

In this article, we’ll explore how Generative can support your firm’s diversity commitments, how it benefits AI development, and how we can champion diversity during our recruitment processes. 

 

Why we believe diversity is important

Diversity is far more than a box to tick; it’s what makes AI systems balanced, fair, and truly innovative. 

As diversity increases, so does the number of perspectives ready to challenge ideas, combat biases, and promote creative solutions. Diverse viewpoints drive innovation and ensure that AI models are developed to be inclusive to their core. Without diversity in their AI development teams, companies could end up producing self-driving cars that struggle to avoid dark-skinned pedestrians and mortgage approval tools that unfairly hike up interest rates for black and Latino borrowers.  

Diversity is also important to Generative because we know how challenging it is for AI firms. Companies cannot prioritise diverse candidates during the hiring process but forget about them later. They must also create an inclusive environment where diverse hires feel empowered to voice their ideas and are naturally compelled to stay committed to the business. 

Our goal is to help forward-thinking companies build diverse teams that develop more robust, ethical AI solutions capable of equitably benefitting a broader audience.  

 

How diversity benefits AI development 

To understand the value of diversity within AI development teams, we must first understand the overwhelming risks of homogeneity. 

Whether conscious or unconscious, biases can easily slip into AI-based solutions at any point in their development. That said, with diverse development teams, companies can dramatically reduce the chances of deeply-integrated algorithmic biases. 

AI models trained on datasets that overrepresent particular groups are prone to biases that impact real-world outcomes. Facial recognition software trained predominantly on images of white men proved to be harmful when the police misidentified people of colour. Similarly, medical AI models trained with skewed, male-dominated datasets delivered inaccurate diagnoses to women.  

If these development teams had been more diverse, somebody would likely have raised alarm bells about the dangers of using such skewed training datasets. It’s simple: hiring diverse talent and giving them the power to voice their opinions dramatically improves the accuracy (and hence value) of AI products. 

 

How Generative can improve your team’s diversity

At Generative, we help companies build world class AI teams. If we present our clients with a shortlist of predominantly diverse candidates (considering factors like gender, ethnicity, disability status, socioeconomic background, and industry experience), they’ll be far more likely to make a diverse hire.  

By engaging with minority networks, diversity-focused professional organisations, and education institutions (like XYZ), we can gain access to a greater number of qualified individuals from underrepresented backgrounds. Plus, we can craft job adverts using inclusive, non-gendered language to encourage diverse job-seekers to apply.   

To further widen the talent pool, we encourage clients to keep their requirements as broad as possible and hire for skills rather than strict qualifications. Finally, we can offer clients the opportunity to eliminate unconscious bias through a blind recruitment process, in which we’d remove all identifying details (e.g. age, gender, and ethnicity) before the face-to-face stage.  

 

Embrace The Power of Diverse AI Teams

Diversity and inclusion aren’t just industry trends; they’re tools that strategic companies use to gain a competitive edge. With a diverse AI team, you’ll develop more inclusive products that reach a wider audience. You’ll also improve innovation, creativity, and productivity with a vast range of perspectives that will contribute to every meeting.  

At Generative, we encourage every company we work with to be strategic and understand the power of diverse teams in AI. To help them achieve this, we offer strategic hiring support that puts them one step closer to having a forward-thinking AI team that’ll build the best products on the market. 

To understand exactly how Generative can help your business curate world class AI teams and build more inclusive technologies, please contact our team. To learn more about why diversity should be prioritised and gain further insights into how to hire and retain diverse talent successfully, check out Generative’s latest whitepaper: From Bias to Balance: Strategies for Cultivating Diversity in AI.