BPW Australia is a member of the national Working with Women Alliance that advises the federal government.
This WWA update explains how artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare in Australia by providing opportunities to enhance productivity and efficiency as well as improve access to health services. However, little attention has been paid to the specific impacts of AI on women’s healthcare. This gap is significant, given that new technologies risk deepening existing inequalities in healthcare and exacerbating harm against women.
General-purpose AI tools are increasingly being used to answer health-related questions, particularly by women. However, these systems are not designed for clinical use, meaning they are often not trained on verified health data and hence do not meet the safety standards expected in healthcare settings, leaving users at risk of receiving misinformed and harmful medical advice.
Commonly used AI tools have been found to downplay women’s physical and mental health issues and risks, creating gender bias in care decisions. This underemphasis of women’s health issues risks exacerbating inequity in care provision and widening gaps in health outcomes.
AI tools pull data from across the internet without verifying its accuracy, exacerbating risks to women’s health by amplifying mis- or dis-information. False and misleading narratives about reproductive health are widespread online, including exaggerated risks and recommendations that contradict professional medical advice. For example, more than half of endometriosis patients believed, based on false online claims, that someone with endometriosis could never become pregnant.
Women’s health concerns, especially those related to reproductive care, chronic pain, and complex conditions like endometriosis, have been historically under-researched and underrepresented in medical literature. This not only weakens the accuracy of AI-generated responses due to the scarcity in training data but also makes it harder to correct misinformation once it spreads.
FemTech, apps designed to support women’s health and wellbeing, is a rapidly growing industry projected to be worth nearly $50 billion globally this year , with over 50 million female users. These products are excluded or exempt from medical device regulation, so they don’t have to meet the same requirements, even when they influence major health decisions like when to conceive, which symptoms to take seriously, or whether to seek care. Most free smartphone menstrual cycle tracking apps were found to be inaccurate, with very few having a medical professional involved in the health information being provided. FemTech raises serious privacy concerns when users are prompted to enter highly intimate information. Over 70% of FemTech apps share user data with third parties for research or business purposes, without giving users any real choice.
The Working with Women Alliance is one of the National Women's Alliances.
Here is their 2026–27 pre-budget submission which presents the NWA’s vision for accelerating progress toward gender equality. It is framed around the Australian Government’s Working for women: a strategy for gender equality, and complements existing reforms by translating strategic commitments, particularly those in the National plan to end violence against women and children 2022-2032, into practical actions grounded in co-design and accountability.
The proposal strengthens the delivery of current frameworks, directing investment toward areas where service gaps persist and where support is most urgently needed. By aligning with established programs and building on Commonwealth–state partnerships, it emphasises the value of coordination and evidence-driven policy design. In doing so, it aims to situate gender equality not as a discrete policy goal but as a guiding principle that can shape resource allocation, service delivery and systemic reform.
The submission presents a summary of recommendations across five priority areas.
- Gender-based violence
- Unpaid and paid care
- Economic equality and security
- Health
- Leadership, representation and decision making
