New automation technologies — including artificial intelligence — are impacting business and labor markets around the world. As these technologies develop, we cannot even begin to predict the effect they will have on our jobs over time.

The headlines are often tinged with fear, as AI is set to replace or eliminate tens of millions of jobs over the coming decades. We’re already seeing AI disrupting employment patterns and changing how we do business, manage, and hire.

Women especially need to be conscious of emerging AI trends and how they will impact their role in the workplace, remaining proactive to ensure they have a seat at the proverbial table.

“AI is transformative, transversal and increasingly infiltrating every part of the economy,” said Dorothy Gordon, chair of the Institute for Information Technologies in Education at UNESCO. “Women must be given the opportunity to participate.”

To do so, we must embrace the changes that are sure to come and be a part of that rising tide – not fight against it.

From a women’s perspective, the concern with AI is that it will only widen the existing gender gap in the workforce, from the developing world all the way to the C-suite and corporate leadership. Early research lays the foundation that AI will impact women and men differently.

For instance, the International Labor Organization (ILO) predicts that in high-income countries, 7.8 percent of jobs held by women are at risk of being replaced by automated technologies, compared to only 2.9 percent of men’s jobs, a difference of 21 million versus nine million lost jobs, respectively.

Take, for example, the financial services industry — an industry that AI is set to transform. While women represent about 50 percent of the industry’s workforce, they represent only 25 percent of senior management positions, instead in clerical and administrative jobs that are most at risk of being replaced by automation. (To that point, 85 percent of bank tellers in the U.S. are women.)

Women are also underrepresented in careers that deal with AI and the digital revolution, potentially missing out on job gains within the field. In fact, women hold 56 percent of all university degrees but just over a third of all STEM degrees (36 percent) and make up only 25 percent of the workforce in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.

To date, only 22 percent of all AI professionals are women, according to the World Economic Forum, and that falls to only 12 percent of machine learning researchers.

There are legitimate concerns that AI will pick up and even magnify the gender bias that is intrinsic in current algorithms and practices when it comes to hiring.

So, how can companies and women prepare to not only survive but thrive with the advent of artificial intelligence?

Looking at the silver lining, AI has the power to actually help us close the gender gap in the workplace. Experts point out that AI may actually remove human bias in recruiting, hiring, awarding promotions, etc.

And research by the World Economic Forum concluded that of all U.S. workers at risk of losing their jobs to AI, 95 percent of them could retrain for AI and machine learning jobs that pay the same or more as their current roles.

This reskilling is essential to adapt to AI, and companies could manage 25 percent of employee reskilling while still staying profitable, with the other 75 percent educated through government subsidies or programs.

Likewise, an investment in educating girls and women in the STEM subjects from a young age is crucial if we expect to adapt to the changing world of AI.

For individuals looking to embrace an AI revolution in the workplace, it’s essential to proactively seek out new education and training opportunities, up leveling your skills at all times.

With any career advancement, surround yourselves with other like-minded women by joining a business organization like GoBundance Women and constantly research ways to leverage technology to increase productivity and customer experience.

For business owners and those in the C-suite, invest in your teams, providing both hard and soft skills that facilitate growth in AI. See it as a compliment to your business model, understanding that any short-term cost or loss of time will be repaid exponentially as your firm and employees are at the forefront of sweeping AI changes.

AI can – and most likely will – have a net positive effect in the workplace for women, as long as we rise to the challenge and seize the opportunities on the horizon.