Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been the talk of the town for a while, but it seems it can walk that talk too, with AI being potentially able to influence gender parity in the workplace. What AI can bring to the workplace was one of the topics explored and debated during'The Future of Work - Accelerating Gender Parity' Conference held by Harvard Business School (HBS) Club of India at Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai on September 21. HBS faculty, industry leaders and other experts spoke at the conference to encourage the strategic importance of gender diversity in a changing environment. "Technology by itself is neutral, so technology can't favour women. But it can be utilized to mitigate the inherent biases against women. What we have started to see in organisations is that AI is being used to look at patterns, along with algorithms, to see if we are biasing some of our decisions, be it decisions concerning entry, promotions or the jobs that they get, against women," said Rekha Menon, Chairman and Senior Managing Director at Accenture in India, during the conference.

"What to do When Machines Do Everything" book authors (l-r) Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, Ben Pring My interview with Malcolm Frank and Paul Roehrig, two of the three authors of What to Do When Machines Do Everything, published by Wiley. Malcolm Frank is the Executive Vice President of Strategy and Chief Marketing, Cognizant. Paul Roehrig is Chief Strategy Officer for Cognizant's Digital Business. Ben Pring is the Global Managing Director of Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work. Bruce Rogers: What has changed since you wrote Code Halos and why the need for the new book What To Do When Machines Do Everything: How To Get Ahead In A World Of AI, Algorithms, Bots and Big Data? Malcolm Frank: In Code Halos, we looked at why some digital businesses like the FAANG companies (Facebook, Apple Amazon, Netflix, Google) were succeeding and others weren't. We kept probing again and found that every one of those businesses that was a digital leader has now turned into an AI (artificial intelligence) company.