According to analytics from the company SimilarWeb, ChatGPT’s global user base skewed roughly 65% male in the first two years of its launch. The Microsoft LinkedIn Work Index found that men are adopting AI tools at significantly higher rates than women. Yet despite this gap, the largest AI companies in Silicon Valley are now aggressively repositioning their products to capture female audiences, specifically mothers and teen girls.
Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz and Cat Tenbarge, author of Spitfire News, explored this shift in a recent episode of Lorenz’s show ‘Power User.’ In the video, they called it a deliberate “pinkwashing” PR pivot designed to distract from the more troubling realities of what these companies are actually building.
“As somebody that does use AI,” Lorenz said, “I actually think that reporting on consumer technology that you yourself don’t use in some capacity is irresponsible.” Still, she acknowledged the gender divide is real. “I feel like AI generally is very male-coded and it’s very male-dominated. And a lot of women feel intimidated by it.”
The pattern is not new. Consumer technology has historically failed to break through without female adoption. From the iPod being repositioned as a fashion accessory to social media being driven by teen girls, the same throughline appears again and again.
“These products never break through until they get female adoption,” Lorenz noted.
OpenAI’s Studio Ghibli image filters, which went viral in early 2025, became one of the fastest-spreading features in ChatGPT history, driven primarily by women. The action figure trend that followed was especially popular with teen girls.
OpenAI’s own research found that women use ChatGPT most heavily for creative writing, emotional tasks, and relationship advice. “Claude is increasingly being used for journaling, emotional processing, relationship advice, parenting support, creative writing,” Lorenz said. “Basically all use cases that women adopt at higher rates.”
For new mothers, the dynamic is particularly charged. “You are so lonely when you have a baby,” Lorenz said. “She was increasingly using AI just to interact with and chat with.” The loneliness epidemic among women, she argues, is being actively courted by these companies. AI companion tools like Replika already report a majority female user base.
The criticism Lorenz raises is not directed at women who use these tools, but at the companies deploying them.
“The fastest way to negate negative PR is to feminize something,” Tenbarge said, “because it makes it appear non-threatening.” And while these companies market to women through lifestyle content, beauty partnerships, and emotional utility, they simultaneously advance contracts with defense agencies and autonomous weapons programs.
“Don’t forget that this is also being used to m*rder people in third world countries,” Lorenz said. “This technology is also being used to commit some of the worst atrocities we’re seeing.”
