Women face a ‘triple penalty’ from the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as many of their jobs are wiped out while men dominate roles created by the new technology.

In a stark report from the World Economic Forum (WEF), experts warned that the new industry risks replicating the inequalities of the past across workplaces and society.

The WEF’s annual gender gap study of 97 countries – covering the economy, education, health and politics – warns that after two decades, progress has become ‘fragile’.

And as AI transforms the jobs market, it threatens to make things worse.

Women represent just a quarter of new AI hires and one in eight AI executives, the report found.

WEF managing director Saadia Zahidi said: ‘There is a completely new industry and it’s somehow replicating some of the oldest patterns.’

 Zahidi said that because AI ‘is likely to influence so much of everything else across the economy’, correcting the gender imbalance in the industry ‘would have an outsize influence on everything else’.

And the new technology could have a damaging impact for women in the wider economy.

Zahidi said: ‘The type of roles that are being disrupted by AI tend to be the type of roles that women have been concentrated in.’

These range from junior legal roles to administrative assistants.

‘It is white collar work that has brought in a lot of women and given them very good livelihoods over the last few decades,’ Zahidi said.

Sue Duke of career networking firm LinkedIn, which helped compile the report, said: ‘Women today face a triple penalty in the AI economy.

‘They’re under-represented in AI roles, they’re under-represented in AI firms and they are very significantly under-represented in AI leadership.’

A key factor is that many roles are recruited from among high-fliers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), areas in which women are significantly under-represented.

And the existing field of software engineering is already male-dominated, Ms Duke added.

Taking career breaks – as women are much more likely to do – will also have a bigger impact on jobs in ‘an industry that’s moving at an extraordinarily fast pace’, she said.

The study found that women are less well represented in AI firms than non-AI firms. And while the share of women business founders with AI engineering skills has risen sharply, for men it has increased faster.

Overall, the report found that gender parity has improved and is closer than ever before. But at the current rate of progress, full parity is still 120 years away. In one key area – the share of countries led by a woman – the measure has fallen back to 2016 levels.

Ms Duke said: ‘Progress towards gender parity in leadership has stalled for a fourth year.

‘Based on the current trajectory, girls born today will not see equal representation at the top in their lifetime. And the issue is even more pronounced for women working in AI roles.

‘But we can change that trajectory by tackling the persistent barriers holding women back as their careers progress.’

The report’s global rankings of progress towards closing the gender gap showed the UK had improved since last year – but fell from fourth to fifth spot as other countries moved faster. Iceland, Finland, Norway and Namibia lead the rankings.