SheWritesAI categories for digests and search

New list of categories: is your newsletter categorized correctly?

2026 update: The list below shows the distribution of writers across categories when this article was first published. If you’re curious about how our writers are distributed across the categories nowadays, see this table, which is updated as new writers are added.

Hi folks - happy Friday! Those of you who have used the SheWritesAI searchable directory table and digests may have noticed a Categories column. Up until now, we were using a general algorithm that automatically categorized texts. The problem with that? The vast majority of our newsletters were categorized as “AI/ML” … well, duh … true, but not helpful for us. 😆

I’ve taken a shot at manually categorizing all 537+ newsletters using the following categories, based on the newsletter descriptions in the table and what I know about the author’s writing. Now, no one category is over 20% of the total. This set will be used:

• in the nomination form (shewritesai.org/nominate)

• in the digests, starting with this weekend (shewritesai.substack.com/s/digests)

• in the searchable table as a column (shewritesai.org/search)

Community members: If you feel like your newsletter belongs in a different primary category within AI and data, let me know and I’ll be glad to update it.

Feedback on these categories is welcome in the SheWritesAI subscriber chat (shewritesai.substack.com/chat), especially on larger categories. AI Applications is at 90 newsletters, and both Business & Strategy and Ethics & Society are in the 70s.

Primary Categories:

(see this interactive table for the latest counts for our growing directory)

• 18 - AI & ML Techniques (technical implementations of foundation models or new machine learning & data science algorithms)

• 70 - Business & Strategy (includes marketing, finance, & entrepreneurship)

• 18 - Career & Leadership (includes professional development)

• 25 - Data & Analytics (all aspects of data collection, management, and usage)

• 26 - Design & Creative Arts (drawing, graphic design, painting, photography, movies, music, video, etc.) - writing is a separate category, below

• 49 - Education & Learning (for teachers or students, formal or informal, of all ages)

• 75 - Ethics & Society (includes culture, DEI, privacy, sustainability)

• 11 - Health & Wellness (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual)

• 27 - Law & Policy (includes enterprise governance)

• 90 - Multiple AI Applications (using AI and ML to solve problems or meet needs)

• 9 - Parenting & Family Life (relationships with children and with parents)

• 34 - Product Development (includes product management)

• 21 - Relationships (with humans or with AI)

• 11 - Science & Research (academia, biosciences, neuroscience, etc.)

• 29 - Technology (includes tech industry, cybersecurity, blockchain, crypto)

• 25 - Writing & Language (linguistics and authoring articles or books and marketing them)