Between Code and Consciousness is a series by The Beautiful Truth asking the question: What does it mean to think, create or decide in the age of AI? Nine leading voices reflect on artificial intelligence – not as an abstract force, but as a tool whose worth depends on how it honours our humanity. 

When Microsoft was building its first AI-as-a-service platform and preparing to launch OpenAI on its global cloud infrastructure Azure, Didem Ün Ateş was often the only woman at the table. Now, she’s ensuring that those tables, and the technologies they produce, serve everyone. A former executive at Microsoft, Accenture, BT and Schneider Electric, she helped create the tools that touch millions. As founder of the Inclusive Intelligence movement and adviser to governments and CEOs through AI strategy firm LotusAI, she embeds frameworks of ethics, fairness and inclusion into the world’s most powerful tools. 

What first moved you to care about inclusion in AI? 

I am Turkish, from a family of entrepreneurs and engineers. A love for technology was always in my blood. I was fortunate to get a scholarship to study electrical engineering and management in the United States, and all my education was funded through scholarships. 

But here is my human story. I grew up in a household with domestic violence. At 11, I decided, I am not going to be like my mother, financially dependent and stuck. I thought, “What can make me independent? A good education in a high-growth industry.” 

I secretly applied to American universities, gained admission with a scholarship, and left. At the University of Pennsylvania, I sat in electrical engineering classes with 180 students. Only five were women. That ratio followed me throughout my career.  

How did your path into AI begin? 

About 13 years ago, Microsoft Research was forming its first business AI team. I emailed the vice president, volunteered on projects and became the only non-US person and the only woman on the team. 

That work evolved into Microsoft’s first AI-as-a-service platform, what I call the grandmother of Copilot. Later, when Microsoft invested in OpenAI, I helped structure the partnership, deciding what would be hosted on Azure, the go-to-market strategy, and how to minimise risk. We launched OpenAI together. 

And then you were asked to focus on responsible AI?  

Yes. Within weeks, Microsoft faced a class-action lawsuit over data privacy. The legal risk was about $10 billion. I was asked to lead responsible AI operationalisation within Microsoft Sales, covering 130,000 people. 

That moment shaped me. I realised how much inclusion and responsibility mattered and now I’m doing the same for companies like Goldman Sachs, Schneider Electric and others.
 
But that moment – being in those rooms with 100 men and me – made me realise something had to change. That’s when I started volunteer inclusion programmes with high school girls in New York, Seattle, Athens, Warsaw and more. It became a formal programme, won several awards and became a movement. 

So, you now advise companies globally. What enacts change, and what holds it back? 

It all starts with mindset and culture, especially at the top. If the leadership isn’t courageous and committed, nothing else matters. AI transformation is tough and there will be failures, expensive mistakes, so it requires honesty, emotional intelligence and communication.
 
Between 80% and 85% of successful AI transformations include significant internal training. There simply isn’t enough AI talent outside for every company to hire. You need to train your own people.
 
One company, Moderna, did this beautifully. They told their employees: “Which task do you hate most in your job? Build a GPT for that.” Their employees created over 750 GPTs. That’s what I mean by innovation at scale.
 
But in many companies, change management is ignored. They think AI is just a chief technology officer project. It’s not. It’s holistic. If you don’t bring the workforce along, they will resist.   

What is at stake when companies ignore responsible AI? 

It’s not optional. If you treat it like a nice-to-have, you’re holding a ticking time bomb. At Microsoft, we had many real cases, internal and external, where we saw ethical risks with AI. It’s real: reputational, financial, legal risk. And the public often doesn’t hear about these because of confidentiality or PR suppression. Even governments cover up their own failures.
 
One public example: the Spanish government launched an algorithm to reduce domestic violence. But because they didn’t apply responsible AI principles, they identified the wrong people. People were harmed. Women died. 

I begin with executive awareness. We show leaders that responsible AI is as essential as cybersecurity. Then we assess their AI systems, identifying risk levels and giving technical recommendations, and help them build manifestos and policies.