Women in Trouble Again: Will AI Really Kill Femtech?!

Here’s how medicine has dealt with the female body for centuries and treated it: if you are nervous, the diagnosis is hysteria; if you are tired – hysteria; if your libido is too low or too high, you guessed it – hysteria. The term comes from the Greek word hýstera (uterus), and for 4000 years, the fantasy of the ‘wandering’ uterus has persisted, supposedly causing everything from fainting and melancholy to all other ailments that could befall a female being. And when the body is not understood, anything can become a diagnosis.

From this misunderstanding arose interesting therapeutic ‘solutions’ that today sound as if they fell out of some dark comedy. Thus, quick marriage and pregnancy were recommended for hysteria, followed by manual pelvic massages which, of course, were performed by professional doctors who, poor souls, had to sacrifice themselves for women to reach ‘hysterical paroxysm’, which is, by the way, a euphemism for orgasm.

And when massages became tedious for doctors, the invention of George Taylor arrived, which many women around the world celebrate today, often without knowing it. Our George patented one of the first medical vibrators in 1869, and it had a powerful name – The Manipulator. Interestingly, it was actually a steam engine.

Bad and Worst Diagnoses

By the 1920s, the vibrator was a legitimate tool in offices until society associated it with sexuality and expelled it from respectable medicine. Because women are not there to enjoy, and George is not a machine for entertainment and idleness, thought the vintage doctors. All this is not some gossip from medical circles, but a mirror of systemic bias. Female sexuality and emotions have been pathologized for centuries because medicine was calibrated to the male body.

And so it was, believe it or not, until the 1990s, by which time most medical research was conducted on men. The practice only changed in 1993 when the NIH Revitalization Act required the inclusion of women in clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health. Women were excluded due to the ‘complexity’ of hormonal cycles and the risk of pregnancy. The consequences of that standard are still felt today – entire generations of drugs, clinical guidelines, and even definitions of symptoms have been shaped based on male physiology.

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A Danish study conducted by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, which lasted from 1994 to 2015 and included 6.9 million people, showed that women were diagnosed with more than 700 diseases later than men – the average difference was about four years. The diagnosis of cancer in women was delayed by two and a half years, and diabetes by as much as four and a half. The result is doubly bad, research says: although women live longer on average, they spend 25 percent more of their lives in poor health, and due to delayed diagnoses and underrepresentation in clinical evidence, it is estimated that tens of millions of lives are lost each year.

According to a report by the McKinsey Health Institute (‘Closing the women’s health gap: A $1 trillion opportunity to improve lives and economies’), the gender gap in healthcare results in 75 million lost years of life annually due to poor health or premature death. Meanwhile, research into women’s ailments continues to receive only a symbolic five percent of investment. In such an environment, femtech, a broad range of products, services, and software dedicated to women’s health, is not trying to capture a niche but to fill a structural gap in the system.

Investment Carousel

Femtech experienced a global peak in investment in 2021, and then, as soon as generative AI became the new star, a sudden drop occurred as investments abruptly turned towards artificial intelligence. That year, investments rose to about $1.9 billion, fell to approximately $1.1 billion in 2022, and capital has since been racing towards generative AI. In Europe, the decline is even more pronounced.

In 2023, femtech attracted only $176 million in investment out of a total of $8.8 billion invested in healthtech, meaning that only about two percent of the healthtech pie went to it; meanwhile, American femtech startups have raised a cumulative approximately $4.8 billion from 2019 to today. Despite this, the market opportunity does not disappear, and estimates suggest that the European femtech market could reach a value of $35 billion by 2032.

Global projections, depending on methodology and scope, are approximately $103 billion (2030 – 2032). Moreover, in Europe, a recovery has already been recorded in 2024, with a record $362 million in 47 funding rounds.

Correction of Injustice

If medicine has viewed the body through a male matrix for decades, today, with the arrival and integration of AI into everything, including femtech, the question arises whether artificial intelligence will distinguish or replicate the biases of ‘vintage doctors’ if it is trained and fed on old and biased medical databases. And this is not a mere hypothesis.

The European Parliament, in its study on AI in healthcare, explicitly warns of the risk of bias and deepening health inequalities, along with a lack of transparency and cyber vulnerabilities. UN Women and UNESCO further emphasize that algorithms trained on unequal data reflect gender stereotypes, from employment to diagnostics, and warn that without corrections, injustices can only increase, not decrease.

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However, the good news is that AI can also correct these injustices, but only with smart design. Experts cite evidence-by-design as the first thing that could correct injustice. This means that at the very beginning of research, samples that truly represent the population by gender, age, and origin are planned, and standardized biomarkers important for women are used. Secondly, separate data and traceability should be sought, and thirdly, AI should be validated on real cohorts and in real conditions, not just based on old databases.

All scientists ultimately convey the same message: that AI in biomedicine should incorporate gender and sex-sensitive data and metrics as a standard and that AI should not be avoided but used to fill knowledge gaps and accelerate the path to accurate diagnosis and personalized therapy.

Difficult Scaling

The biggest problem for femtech is scaling, and the main reason why this industry struggles to reach its peak is not demand, but the infrastructure of knowledge and regulations. Primary science about the female body has been undercapitalized for decades, so founders often have to first build a base of evidence, from biomarkers and diagnostic criteria to valid questionnaires and reference values, and only then can they focus on the product. This prolongs the early development phase, increases perceived risk, and delays the entry of investors who seek short validation cycles.

Moreover, femtech still lacks enough large IPOs that could serve as a clear precedent for new funds. Additionally, the regulation of such health products is always complicated, and clinical benefit must be proven before production can even begin.

However, although femtech is subject to significant regulation, positive shifts are emerging. The shift is that femtech has managed to move away from the image of just menstrual cycle applications and is slowly evolving into a multi-layered industry, from reproductive and postpartum health, menopause, mental health, diagnostics, longevity to sexual health.

AI Sextech

And since we have already mentioned sexual health, it is time to address it a bit because part of femtech, the so-called sextech, is already entering the era of AI. The idea is simple, as it always has been, but the execution is getting smarter. Devices or aids now come with built-in sensors, voice control, and machine learning that adjusts rhythm, intensity, and stimulation to real, live reactions of users.

Some products analyze usage and behavior patterns and over time ‘tune’ to what you like, i.e., they learn. Devices can respond to movements, breath, heart rate, or simply to voice. Is this a replacement for people? Not yet, but it can be a very useful aid. AI in sextech combines sensors, local models, and applications. Part of the ‘sexual’ logic can be in the device itself, and another in the application or cloud, depending on the manufacturer.

Over time, the system learns, so after a while, it knows how long you prefer a certain pattern; when to increase, when to decrease intensity; how you react to changes in pressure or angle. Some devices offer a training mode, others rely on voice commands and interactive touch, while others connect with VR and haptics to synchronize stimuli with visuals, sounds, or scenarios.

For those who live far apart, there are solutions that synchronize stimuli between two people, creating a sense of closeness in real-time that crosses great distances. Another rapidly growing direction in femtech is virtual companions, software partners that converse, learn preferences, and sometimes have AR/VR avatars. They cross the boundary of mere ‘device management’ and enter the realm of emotional support, flirting, and even aftercare.

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As futuristic as it may sound to some, for many it is a tool against loneliness, but also a safe space to explore their own desires and boundaries. The more you use it, the more accurately the system hits the rhythm, language, and atmosphere that suits you. Does it sound appealing?

Who Watches the Data

However, all this intelligence of all these new devices requires data – your data. Pleasure comes at a price, and that is intimate, actually the most intimate, data. The question is whether you are willing to share it, and another question is who is even collecting it, where it is stored, and who has access to it; also, can you delete it when you say goodbye to your AI toy. These are serious questions, and a good manufacturer should provide clear answers.

If you want to minimize risk, choose brands with a clear privacy policy, the option for local storage or end-to-end encryption, 2FA, and without mandatory social media connections. Cybersecurity experts say that all those good habits you have for online banking apply here as well.

Ultimately, the story of AI sextech is not just a story about a market phenomenon because devices that measure pulse, heart rate variability, breathing, skin temperature, or movement rhythm are potentially worth their weight in gold for women’s health. With consent and good privacy design, the same sensors and algorithms can help track symptoms, cycles, pain, or recovery after childbirth.

In other words, a market that today attracts attention for entertainment can, with good clinical design, become a source of data and solutions relevant for diagnosis, therapy, and quality of life. When sextech sensors and AI are combined with clinical protocols of femtech, we get a double benefit.

First, it becomes clearer what actually works for users (and what doesn’t), allowing the product to be smartly refined immediately, leading to a faster product-market fit. Second, real-world evidence (RWE) is simultaneously generated, confirming health benefits, reducing doubts from regulators and insurers, and opening doors for expansion and investors.

In the end, AI in the room may be a boogeyman for some, and not for others. It is only important that all these AI sensors and algorithms that learn and collect data are well ‘privately tuned’ and that they help femtech reach evidence and funding faster. If these two align, it will be a home run – health and satisfaction, and an industry that has much to offer, and that long-term.