'As DEI is coming down, AI is going up': experts warn of AI's impact on diversity and inclusion
On 23 June, the Digital Futures Institute hosted Digital Futures of Diversity – the third event in the new season of the Living Well with Technology series.
Left to right: Lewis Iwu, Elisabeth Kelan, Birgit Neu, Kate Devlin, Nessa Keddo. Image credit: Richard Eaton
A multidisciplinary panel of experts examined how educational institutions, media organisations, and businesses can harness digital technologies to create genuinely inclusive environments.
The discussion was sparked by recent political developments in the United States, including the Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI initiatives. Panellists warned that these actions are having ripple effects globally, including in the UK, where many US companies have a presence.
Birgit Neu. Image credit: Richard Eaton
Birgit Neu, an independent Senior Advisor with expertise centred on inclusion strategy design and change management, spoke about the impact Trump’s executive orders had on digital – at the time when organisations are racing to get into AI.
Budgets have been slashed, DEI headcount has been slashed inside organisations – in part for good reason because we had a lot of people doing the diversity work that might not have been quite as qualified as they could have been. As DEI is coming down and AI is going up in another part of the organisation, the AI side of the conversation is completely disconnected from the diversity side. Whilst there’s a move towards responsible AI, a lot of that is focused on bias mitigation, but it is not necessarily the same thing as being proactively inclusive.
Birgit Neu, Senior DEI Advisor
Lewis Iwu. Image credit: Richard Eaton
Lewis Iwu, CEO and Founding Partner of Purpose Union, advises organisations on devising and executing winning arguments and campaigns on social and environmental issues. Lewis pointed to the digital divide as a growing concern – the issue that was exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.
I am concerned that we still haven't been able to close the digital divide of technology that exists already, let alone new technology which is moving rapidly. We're already beginning to see a divide opening up in terms of access to Chat GPT. I work with a social mobility charity, and a leg of their strategy over the next couple of years is to work with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to provide free access to premium Chat GPT. I think you're going to see more of that in the future because that divide is real and could get bigger.
Lewis Iwu, CEO and Founding Partner, Purpose Union
Dr Nessa Keddo. Image credit: Richard Eaton
Dr Nessa Keddo, Senior Lecturer in Media, Diversity and Technology at King’s, has pioneered EDI strategies and technological change management within higher education and industry throughout her career. Dr Keddo, who is a trustee in a small charity, pointed out that while organisations with enough resources seem to be trailblazing diversity initiatives, small organisations with limited funding are left behind.
There are lots of examples of good practice: organizations on LinkedIn are sharing their AI fluency guides, their approaches to digital inclusion in the workplace, and those are all great initiatives. But similarly to thinking about the digital divide in schools, the majority of small charities still do their filing in paper files in their office. The thought of Chat GPT and other affordances of technology just isn't a potential possibility because they're looking at how are they going to survive the next couple of months, let alone think about digital advancement.
Dr Nessa Keddo, Senior Lecturer in Media, Diversity and Technology
Professor Elisabeth Kelan. Image credit: Richard Eaton
Professor Elisabeth Kelan, Professor of Leadership and Organisation at King’s, whose research focuses on digitalisation and diversity at work, inclusive leadership and gender in organisations, warned against tech solutionism, where companies rely on technologies to fix systemic issues without addressing root causes.
There is this idea that if we throw technology at an issue, it will disappear. Tech solutionism is part of the problem. We seem to think that the issues we’re experiencing are all novel, while in reality we already have the tools to solve many of them. We just need the DEI professionals to understand what the technologies do – and vice versa – to have meaningful conversations. That is partly what is holding us back to create ways to solve those problems – and the solutions are not always technical.
Professor Elisabeth Kelan, Professor of Leadership and Organisation at King’s
The event concluded with experts calling for collective responsibility. ‘Everybody has agency in different ways, and you have to know what's appropriate for what you do, the sector that you're in, the people that you communicate with. At the moment, the most powerful thing that we can do is educate ourselves about how AI works and what is the relevance to what we do for a living, and our families, and the people that are around us. We’re each going to have to drive the change on this individually. It’s going to be through doing what we do best,’ said Birgit Neu.
Bringing the conversation about emerging technologies to people in an inclusive way is the responsibility of institutions rather than individuals, said Lewis Iwu. ‘It is on companies, government, non-profits with a focus on emerging technologies to invest substantial amount of time in going where the people are, making this relevant, but crucially hearing people’s thoughts on this and co-building it together.’
The next event in the Living Well with Technology series, Digital Futures of Security, will feature Tony Reeves, Strategic Lead AI in Defence at Partner at Deloitte, Claudia Aradau, Professor of International Politics at King’s, and Luca Viganò, Professor of Computer Science and Head of Cybersecurity Group at King’s. It will be held online on 23 July 2025. Register here.
