According to nonprofit Lean In and McKinsey & Company’s latest Women in the Workplace report, for the first time since the report began a decade ago, significantly fewer women than men are interested in getting a promotion at work. Compared to 80% of men in entry-level career stages, 86% in mid-career, and 92% of senior executives, only 69% of entry-level women, 82% in their mid-career, and 84% of female senior executives reported a desire to advance in their careers. The data was taken from 124 companies with 3 million workers, as well as interviews with 62 human resources executives. 

In 2023, 81% of both men and women surveyed said they were interested in getting promoted, including 93% of women under 30, highlighting an “ambition gap” that has emerged in the last year. 

Lean In attributed the gap to a disparity in support and resources available to women in the workplace, including less advocacy from managers, making them less likely to be recommended for a promotion. According to the report, when women receive the same career support as men, the ambition gap in seeking a promotion disappears.

The gap is part of a growing pattern of women being left behind in the workplace, says former Meta Platforms Inc. executive and nonprofit Lean In founder Sheryl Sandberg. While the number of men in the workplace this year has risen by nearly 400,000, the number of working women has fallen by about 500,000, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows. 

“This is my fourth decade in the workplace, and we are in a particularly troubling moment in terms of the rhetoric on women,” she told CNN on Tuesday. “You see it everywhere in all the sectors. But what I’ve seen is, you know, we make progress, we backslide. We make progress, we backslide. And I think this is a major moment of backsliding.”

Troubling workplace trends

Stricter return-to-office mandates and the rising cost of childcare have forced many women to either cut hours or quit their jobs altogether, what some researchers are calling “The Great Exit.” Labor force participation from women aged 25 to 44 with children under 5 fell by about 3% from January to June of this year alone.

The women who are still able to work from home, sometimes out of necessity because of childcare responsibilities, risk becoming invisible at their job. Many get less feedback and mentorship than their in-office counterparts. They are also less likely to be promoted than their male counterparts and see fewer raises and lower wages.

The changes in workplace patterns also come amid concerted efforts to curb diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the workplace, with women saying this rollback has impacted their career plans, including prioritizing job security over career growth opportunities. President Donald Trump got rid of EO 11246, an executive order mandating federal contractors provide equal employment to marginalized groups like women and people of color, on his second day in office.

Lean In’s data suggests remaining workplace DEI efforts are also falling short. Despite 88% of companies saying they prioritize inclusive cultures, only 54% say they’ve committed to programs designed for women’s career enhancement and 48% committing to efforts to advance women of color at work. One-fifth of companies surveyed reported no specific support efforts for moving women up in their careers.

“We’ve built systems that aren’t working, and women are bearing the brunt of it,” billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates told Fortune in October. “It’s very concerning to see so many women leaving the workforce—but if you’ve been listening all along to what women say about their careers, it’s not surprising.”

French Gates said she attributes continued challenges for women in the workplace to tradeoffs they have to make, including balancing work with childcare. Women also continue to face workplace harassment and navigate enduring stereotypes about their own leadership capabilities, French Gates added.

To Sandberg, the issue goes beyond something ideological. She argued neglecting women in the workplace is a dangerous economic choice, saying that if the U.S. were to increase women’s workforce participation on par with other wealthy countries, it would add an additional 4.2% GDP growth. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data indicates the wealth of a country is correlated with the participation of women in its workforce.

“This is a critical issue, not of special treatment,” Sandberg said, “but of making sure we get the best out of our workforce and we are competitive economically.”

Yet Kiara Nirghin, a Stanford technologist and Gen Z entrepreneur, sees Gen-Z’s comfort with AI as an asset. “The younger generation isn’t adopting AI, we’re growing up fluent in AI,” she said at Fortune Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. 

Nirghin, who co-founded Chima, a U.S.-based applied AI research lab, explained that young entrepreneurs see coding as something to be done alongside AI agents, rather than done alone and from scratch. 

AI “fundamentally changes how you write, how you take tests, [and] how you apply to jobs or different applications—because it’s not from the ground up. It’s actually being able to do that with different models or agents, side by side,” Nirghin said. AI fluency sets Gen Z individuals apart from their older peers, allowing them to pioneer use cases and applications of AI that have yet to be unlocked, she explained. 

Some experts have argued that AI has eroded our critical thinking abilities. A 2025 study by researchers from MIT’s Media Lab found that users of ChatGPT “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”

But Nirghin argued that this isn’t always true.“ The biggest misconception is that young people are using AI to not think things through, [but] I think that really intelligent Gen Z individuals are using it to think even deeper,” she said.

The entrepreneur pointed to how running complex research reports through AI could generate insights they may not have thought of otherwise—hence allowing users to get a fresh perspective.

Moving with the AI models

AI isn’t just for the young, however, and Nirghin stressed the technology’s ability to help workers at all levels of their careers. “We’re [only] at the beginning. It is only going to get faster, more advanced and more intelligent each and every model from here on out,” said Nirghin. 

She likened AI anxiety to climate anxiety—in that it stems from humanity’s fear of not moving fast enough to stay ahead of the game.

“In the past couple of weeks, [there’s] been two model releases that have engulfed the benchmarks in such an enormous way that pretty much everything you’ve ever used AI for can now just be 10x-ed,” Nirghin explained.

And to avoid being left behind, workers can familiarize themselves with “main model players” like ChatGPT and Gemini, and learn to use them as co-pilots and tools in everyday life. By continuously using the newest AI models, users will be more comfortable with the new technology, and thus lose their anxiety, she said. 

“The models right now are as dumb as they are ever going to be, [and] a couple months down the line, we are going to be in a very different landscape. Being able to be really comfortable with that, and having your core tools that you use and get comfortable with is really important.”

In an interview, Gabelli said Paramount will ultimately have to increase its $30-a-share bid for Warner Bros. and that Netflix Inc. will also likely counter with a higher offer. Saying he supports the Paramount tender is a way of signaling he prefers more competition for the company.

“We’re in the early rounds,” Gabelli said. “Round five of a nine-round challenge.”

Warner Bros. shares were up 3.8% to $28.26 at the close in New York on Tuesday.

The longtime media investor attended Paramount’s presentation at a UBS conference on Tuesday and walked away impressed. Management “did a very good job” addressing potential regulatory challenges including at the state level, he said.

Gabelli’s firm and funds hold almost 5.7 million Warner Bros. shares, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, worth about $160 million based on Tuesday’s closing price. He also owns shares in Paramount and Netflix.

Warner Bros. agreed last week to sell its streaming and studios businesses, including HBO, to Netflix for $27.75 a share in cash and stock. Paramount on Monday went public with an all-cash tender offer for Warner Bros. and has been looking to convince investors its bid is better.

Gabelli plans to tender because the “terms of trade favor Paramount,” including an all-cash proposal that doesn’t rely on publicly traded stock or the spinoff of Warner Bros.’ cable networks, as Netflix’s offer does. 

Gabelli wouldn’t say which company was a better fit for Warner Bros.

“I don’t like to endorse things,” he said. “That’s why you play that card (a tender offer). It’s Texas hold ’em.”

On Tuesday, Gabelli’s company said in a regulatory filing it purchased more shares of the cinema and hotel company Marcus Corp.

Movie theater chains, which have been battered by tepid ticket sales and the threat of cutbacks in Hollywood releases, are a buy, Gabelli said. Paramount winning Warner Bros. would be “clearly better” for theaters because management believes in traditional film releases.