AI Makes Women Sound Less Professional: How to Fix Your Prompts

The Study: Women's Language Triggers Simpler AI Responses

To test whether prompt language shapes AI output, researchers created 854 prompts asking AI to draft emails, cover letters or resignation letters. Half of the prompts used language more frequently associated with women, and the other half used patterns associated with men. The researchers submitted the prompts to four AI models: GPT-4, Gemma, Mistral and Llama.

Across all four models, prompts with women-associated language generally produced simpler and less formal responses. The AI-generated replies used less sophisticated vocabulary and were written at a lower grade level. The finding was strongest for emails and job applications and weaker when AI was prompted to write resignation letters.

Notably, the effect came from the language itself, not the writer's identity. When researchers included traditionally male or female names in the prompts, the names had virtually no impact on the results.

Lead author Katherine Van Koevering said she would be surprised if the results did not hold for newer models. “The takeaway I want the public to get is AI may treat you differently based on how you talk,” she said.

It's the Language, Not the Name

The AI wasn’t responding to the gender of the person writing the prompt, but to the language they used. When researchers included traditionally male or female names in the prompts, the names had virtually no impact on the results. The researchers also tested whether the AI was simply mimicking users’ language and the style of their prompts. They found that mimicry explained some, but not most, of the differences.

In one example, the researchers developed prompts to write an email notifying a work team that a particular development server had been set up. The version incorporating women-associated language used the collective “can we,” asking, “How can we compose an email…” The emails that AI generated for each prompt were noticeably different. The email generated with “can we” in the prompt opened with “Exciting news!” and ended with “Happy developing!” The other email, based on language associated with men, began simply, “Just wanted to let you know…”

“While we have not yet tested GPT-5, I would be surprised if the results did not hold,” said Katherine Van Koevering, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Data Science and AI Institute.

What Women Should Avoid in Prompts

The results suggest that anyone—woman or man—who wants AI to generate professional emails and letters should avoid hedges, tag questions, “we,” and expressive adjectives. However, these language patterns may be particularly difficult for women to change. The researchers note that, for women, this language is “unconscious and culturally embedded,” making it hard to avoid when prompting AI. And, as users increasingly interact with AI by voice, these patterns may be even harder to avoid because people may be less likely to notice they are even using these phrases.

As a result of the research, Van Koevering is much more aware of her own use of hedges in prompting as well as her use of collective phrases like “can we.” However, she ultimately believes it’s unfair to put the burden on women to change their speaking patterns. “The companies need to fix the models, rather than putting all of the burden on the user,” she said in a university news release about the study. Nonetheless, Van Koevering says it can be interesting for users to experiment with different ways of phrasing the same prompt to see how the AI’s response changes.

Why This Matters for Workplace Perceptions

A 2026 survey from technology company Omni Calculator found two-thirds of employees use AI for work communications each week. In some instances, women were even more likely than men to use AI to generate correspondence, like when replying to awkward or difficult messages.

These AI-generated messages are often sent to colleagues, managers or potential employers, so subpar suggestions from AI could have real repercussions for women.

Coauthor Anjalie Field, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University, explains how this could impact perceptions at work. “If you prompt a model to write an email you’re going to send to someone else at your company, and you’re using language features that women more commonly use, you’ll get back a response that’s less complex, at a lower grade level, and less formal. That’s going to reflect on how the recipient of that document perceives you,” she said.

In the research paper, the authors also warn that LLMs may inadvertently reinforce stereotypes about women’s professional competence or dilute the perceived authority of their communications.