The gender investing gap is real. Less than half of American women invest their savings, compared to two-thirds of men. Even when they do invest, women tend to be less active in their approach than men — despite outperforming them when it comes to generating positive returns.
Take Chloé Portier, who still felt hesitant to invest her own money even though she worked in a prestigious position at Bank of America.
“I understood markets and products on a theoretical level,” says Portier. “But when it came to decisions for myself, I second-guessed everything. I realized that if I felt this way despite my background, how many others were feeling the same?”
This realization sparked a passion in Portier, who became devoted to building financial literacy in women and making valuable contributions to closing the gender investing gap.
Meet the Data Scientist Determined to Solve the Gender Investing Gap
Portier’s professional journey began with master’s degrees in data science and machine learning in France, followed by a career in finance at Bank of America in London. This history prepared her well for investing — at least in theory. In reality, she found herself hesitant to invest her savings.
In conversations with friends, colleagues, and family who had similar hesitations, she identified a common theme: many women feel they need to be “perfectly informed” before they could even consider investing. As a result, their threshold for trusting the global markets with their money seemed noticeably higher than it was for their male counterparts.
This pressure for perfect knowledge, which too often leads to inaction, inspired Portier to solve the problem with technology.
Fast forward to today, and Chloé Portier is a product manager at MadKudu, a revenue intelligence platform that equips sales teams with AI-powered insights. Her work has led to significant results, including increased pipeline conversion rates for sales teams by 200%.
But beyond her work at MadKudu, she’s also become a trusted voice in the AI community. For one, she’s the co-host of the AI Paper Bites podcast, a series of bite-sized episodes that break down cutting-edge AI research. She’s also reviewed submissions for conferences like AI4EDU and the Good Data Conference.
Portier uses her growing platform not just to ship smarter tools but to advocate for greater financial accessibility — particularly for women. She creates educational content on Instagram and TikTok, demystifying investing, and has prototyped AI-powered platforms aimed at making financial literacy more intuitive and inclusive, helping more women invest with clarity and confidence.
Why AI for Financial Literacy?
Several innovators have attempted to solve this gender gap in various ways, with tools like Cleo making solid attempts to increase financial literacy among women. But most solutions fall short because they don’t consider the full complexity of investing and financial management.
For example, while these tools are handy for simple use cases, they don’t hold up to the needs of expatriate women who need to manage their finances across borders. They also tend to offer generic advice that falls short when it comes to addressing women’s issues, such as taking career breaks or conducting family planning.
“Traditional financial advice often overlooks these complexities,” explains Portier. “But AI can take in your specific goals, context, and constraints and provide clear and actionable steps that are tailored to you.”
The clarity that AI can provide should not be overlooked: Portier emphasizes AI’s ability to overcome the unnecessarily complicated terminology barrier that scares off many would-be investors, translating complex concepts into easy-to-understand strategies. “AI comes without judgment and without jargon,” she says. “And it’s always available.”
These capabilities do wonders for a woman’s confidence in her ability to invest wisely. A lack of confidence is a major barrier to investing, driven in part by a culture where female decision-making power is still relatively new. “Historically, women haven’t been responsible for managing their family’s wealth,” she explains. “Many of us are the first generation of women to actively think about investing for ourselves and our futures.”
As a result, most women don’t have an established roadmap or role model, leading to hesitation. To make matters worse, most online investment communities tend to follow a “bro culture,” making it difficult for women to feel included.
Despite this, women who overcome the confidence barrier are proving that they’re more than capable, with studies estimating that women outperform men in investing by up to 1.8%. As Portier puts it, “Women tend to be more disciplined, less reactive to market swings, and more focused on long-term goals.”
But when AI is capable of turning complex financial scenarios into clear investment decisions, that confidence barrier disappears. “I’ve used AI to simulate investment scenarios, understand potential trade-offs, and gain clarity,” Portier explains. “Once I took that step, I realized it’s a lot less intimidating than it seemed.”
The Next 5 to 10 Years: AI’s Role in Financial Inclusion for Women
AI, Portier has found, can overcome the biggest barriers women face when deciding whether and how to invest. It also has the potential to completely transform how financial institutions serve women, empowering them to provide their customers with personalized roadmaps, approachable guidance, and women-specific financial planning.
“It’s a huge cultural shift and especially significant in an industry that hasn’t always made women feel welcome or seen,” Portier says. “My goal is to bridge the gap between technology and trust, showing women that they don’t have to be experts to take control of their money.”