One of India’s strengths has been the effort women make to build careers while managing family responsibilities. Yet, significant life events such as maternity and other career breaks often make returning to work difficult. While female labour-force participation has improved in recent years, the gap remains substantial. The latest PLFS annual report for 2025 puts labour-force participation among women aged 15 and above at 45.9% in rural India, but only 27.7% in urban India.
For an economy seeking faster growth and looking to leverage its nari shakti, organisations must find better ways to bridge the knowledge and skills gap that can inhibit women from resuming their careers.
Artificial intelligence can play an important role here. It can serve as a personalised tutor for women on multi-month career breaks, helping them stay abreast of new technologies introduced in their absence. It can assist with research, document and presentation creation, business simulations and the acquisition of new skills, from spoken languages to digital capabilities.
AI fluency itself can also become a valuable capability that returning women bring to the workplace. This does not necessarily mean learning to develop AI systems. Rather, women need to understand how AI is changing the functional and business domains in which they work. Experience does not become obsolete because of a career break. AI can help make that experience productive again, and much faster.
A working knowledge of generative and agentic AI applications could add significant value to the individual, the function and the organisation. The government has recognised the importance of AI skilling. Apart from the countrywide AI training commitment made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address, around 20,000 women had been trained or oriented in AI-related job roles under PMKVY 4.0 by December 2025. The government’s Skilling for AI Readiness programme has also expanded into AI applications for jobs, workplace productivity and different sectors, recording more than five lakh enrolments and over one lakh certifications by August 2026.
The next step should be to expand such opportunities to more women and create pathways specifically designed for experienced professionals seeking to re-enter the workforce.
Designing Personalised Returnships
An AI-enabled returnship could begin with an assessment of an individual’s current capabilities rather than relying solely on her original resume. Matching those capabilities with the advances AI has brought to her profession could help design a reskilling programme tailored to her needs.
Depending on the time available, AI could create learning modules and deliver them on a “just-in-time” and “need-to-know” basis. A three- or six-month programme could combine domain refreshers, AI fluency, live projects, mentoring and workplace exposure. Instead of asking a woman to prove that a career break has not damaged her capabilities, such a programme should help demonstrate what she can deliver now.
The learning process could include simulations, short projects and online interactions with experts, while giving line managers and HR teams regular visibility into the participant’s progress and readiness to return. AI could also open up entrepreneurial opportunities. It can help women identify and evaluate new business areas that offer greater flexibility as they balance professional and personal responsibilities. AI-enabled self-employment could allow many women to continue contributing to their profession and the wider economy.
Research, marketing, customer service, content creation and basic analytics are capabilities that AI can increasingly make accessible without the need for large teams. The MSME ministry estimates that India has about 1.24 crore women-owned proprietary MSMEs, accounting for more than 20% of all proprietary MSMEs. AI could help many more women start, scale and manage such businesses.
Whether it is a return to employment or a new entrepreneurial venture, women should not have to choose between remaining professionally relevant and meeting their personal commitments. Organisations, too, have an opportunity to rethink how they bring experienced talent back into the workforce.
If used well, AI can help make career breaks less of a permanent detour and more of a pause—one from which women can return with renewed skills, confidence and relevance.
The writer is chairperson, GTT Foundation
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.