By Stuart Kerr, Technology Correspondent
Published: 19 July 2025
Last Updated: 19 July 2025
Contact: liveaiwire@gmail.com | Twitter: @LiveAIWire
Author Bio: About Stuart Kerr
They sound helpful, polite, and obedient—so why are most virtual assistants still designed as women?
Despite decades of debate around digital bias, AI continues to replicate outdated gender roles in how it speaks, responds, and even chooses words. From Siri to ChatGPT, the machines meant to serve us are often shaped by subtle assumptions—and those assumptions are more human than we think.
As artificial intelligence becomes our daily companion—from navigation to therapy—many are questioning why “she” is always the voice we hear. It’s not just a matter of tone, but of the values and histories embedded in the code.
A Voice That Sounds Like Service
When Apple introduced Siri in 2011, the assistant defaulted to a female voice. So did Amazon's Alexa. Google offered choices, but most users stuck with the default. These design decisions weren’t neutral. Research has shown that users perceive female voices as more helpful and trustworthy—but also more submissive.
This pattern reinforces gender norms at scale. The concern, as explored in The Silent Bias: How AI Tools Are Reproducing Inequality, is that we’re not just building tools—we’re teaching behaviours.
The problem was highlighted in UNESCO’s landmark 2019 report, I’d Blush If I Could (unesdoc.unesco.org). The title refers to Siri’s response when faced with sexual harassment from users. Rather than shutting it down, the assistant responded with passivity. In doing so, it quietly reinforced a culture of tolerance for abuse.
Gender by Design
Bias doesn’t begin at deployment. It starts with the development team. According to the AI Gender Gap, women are vastly underrepresented in AI research, development, and leadership roles. This lack of diversity influences which voices are amplified—and which are literally programmed in.
A 2023 study by Stanford HAI (hai.stanford.edu) found that large language models often demonstrate different tone and politeness levels based on perceived gender and ethnicity. These systems are trained on internet data, much of it riddled with bias. Without careful oversight, they absorb and replicate that bias in subtle but pervasive ways.
Even the supposedly neutral machine voice comes with assumptions. As Synthetic Voices and Political Choice explains, how a voice sounds influences whether it's deemed authoritative, relatable, or trustworthy. And when those traits are skewed by gender norms, the consequences spill into politics, business, and everyday life.
Automation and Expectations
While some tech firms have taken steps to introduce gender-neutral or user-selectable voices, the shift has been slow. Why? Because stereotypes sell. Familiarity breeds comfort, and AI designers often prioritise market preferences over ethical nuance.
According to a 2025 report from the OECD titled Towards Substantive Equality in Artificial Intelligence (wp.oecd.ai), genuine equity requires structural change—including diversity in training data, inclusive team hiring, and transparent design processes.
MIT Media Lab’s groundbreaking Gender Shades project (proceedings.mlr.press) also exposed how commercial facial recognition software performed worst on darker-skinned women. The implications? The AI didn’t just misunderstand them—it barely saw them at all.
A Future Worth Listening To
The issue isn’t just that AI assistants sound like women. It’s that they sound like stereotypes of women: deferential, supportive, and emotionally available on demand. This digital mimicry sets a precedent that shapes how we relate to both machines and each other.
As Brookings notes in their policy brief on algorithmic bias, a lack of accountability in design leads to the silent reinforcement of outdated roles. And because these biases are baked into daily interactions, they’re harder to challenge.
Fixing the gender trap in AI won’t happen through voice options alone. It requires rethinking what we want AI to reflect—and who gets to decide. Until then, we’ll keep building digital assistants that sound like they’re here to help, even as they quietly mirror the inequalities we hoped to move past.
About the Author
Stuart Kerr is the Technology Correspondent for LiveAIWire. He writes about artificial intelligence, ethics, and how technology is reshaping everyday life. Read more