Chanel CEO Uncovers Stark Gender Bias in AI

Leena Nair, Chanel’s second female global CEO and a vocal advocate for gender diversity, recently encountered a jarring example of AI bias. During a visit to Microsoft's headquarters, she and her team experimented with OpenAI's ChatGPT, only to find a skewed perception of the luxury brand's leadership.

An AI Image at Odds with Reality

During an interview at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Nair recounted the experience. Her team gave ChatGPT a simple prompt: “Show us a picture of a senior leadership team from Chanel visiting Microsoft.” The result was an image of an all-male team in suits. This depiction starkly contrasts with Chanel's actual workforce, which is 76% female, and its clientele, of which 96% are women. Nair, herself the CEO, highlighted the absurdity.

“It was a 100% male team, not even in fashionable clothes,” she said. “Like, come on. This is what you’ve got to offer?”

In response to the incident, an OpenAI spokesperson acknowledged that bias remains a significant issue the industry is actively working to address, stating, “We are continuously iterating on our models to reduce bias and mitigate harmful outputs.”

A Deeper Look at Gender Bias in AI

This incident is not isolated. AI models have a documented history of reflecting and amplifying societal biases. A 2023 UCLA study found that when asked to write recommendation letters, large language models (LLMs) often described male candidates with words like “expert” and “integrity,” while using terms like “beauty” and “delight” for female candidates. Similarly, LLMs have shown a tendency to associate historically male-dominated professions with male pronouns.

More recent research has also uncovered linguistic biases, where models like ChatGPT respond with more stereotypes or demeaning content when prompted with nonstandard English dialects.

Chanel’s Strategy for Ethical AI Integration

Despite these challenges, Nair affirms that integrating AI is “nonnegotiable” for Chanel. The company is actively investing in technology, having launched Lipscanner, an AI-powered app for virtual lipstick try-ons, in 2021. However, Nair stresses the importance of proceeding with caution and a strong ethical framework.

“It’s so important that we keep the ethics and integrity of what we’re doing,” she stated, emphasizing her conversations with tech CEOs about “integrating a humanistic way of thinking in AI.” As part of this commitment, Chanel’s Culture Fund is collaborating with the California Institute of the Arts to build a new arts center focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

A Leader Championing Diversity

Nair's focus on ethical AI aligns with her career-long dedication to promoting diversity. Since taking the helm at Chanel in 2021, after a 30-year career at Unilever, she has increased the percentage of female managers at the company from 38% to over 60%. As only the second female global CEO and the first Indian CEO in the brand’s 114-year history, Nair is committed to breaking barriers.

“I’ve been the first at every job I’ve done,” she told the Wall Street Journal. “The first woman, the first brown person, the first Asian, the first Indian—but I don’t want to be the last.”