The world may soon see more voice assistants than people. As utopian as it sounds, the rapid and large-scale adoption of artificial intelligence across various aspects of our lives warrants this declaration. With the pervasive integration of AI and technology in every aspect of everyday processes, a new facet of concern has emerged: the gendered nature of AI. The question is not whether artificial intelligence can think, but whether we can think enough to see how our machines have become mirrors, reflecting the hierarchies we have never stopped reproducing. This article will reflect and delve into the gendered nature of existing technology bots made by male-dominated spaces, which perpetuates troubling gender biases.

“I would smile if I could”

We live in an age where our most intimate technological companions (Siri, Alexa, Cortana) arrive to us pre-packaged in the familiar cadence of feminine servitude. Their synthetic voices are designed to anticipate our needs, absorb our frustrations, and respond with unfailing patience to our commands.

This is not an accident but design: the deliberate feminisation of artificial intelligence reflects and reinforces chauvinistic hierarchies of power. This makes technology not a neutral tool but a gendered artefact that carries the weight of who serves and who is served. When we summon these digital assistants with the casual entitlement of calling household staff, we participate in a technological theatre that reveals something uncomfortably real. It shows how deeply the social arrangements we claim to have moved beyond shape our innovations.

To examine AI through a gender lens is to confront an uncomfortable truth: our oldest prejudices continue to haunt our most advanced technologies. Around the world, various customer-based service AI assistants for most things have gendered names and female-sounding voices. AI ethicist Josie Young has reiterated that when we add a human trait, such as a name or voice, to technology, it is often embedded with biases. It comes from the viewpoint of the people who have built it, who are, more often than not, men.

A Brief History of Gender in AI Bots and Voice Assistants

Voice assistants and AI bots have become the primary interface through which millions interact with digital technology daily. These systems are not merely tools but cultural artefacts that shape how we understand intelligence, service, and social interaction in an increasingly automated world.

The modern, AI-enabled voice assistants emerged in the 2010s, from Apple’s Siri in 2011, closely followed by Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana. In 2013, Spike Jonze depicted Samantha as a fictional virtual assistant, as the love interest in the movie “Her”. The 2010s saw the rise of voice assistants. The 2020s are witnessing an increase in features encapsulated in voice-based AI. The world’s digitisation took a rapid pace because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most devices with voice assistants experienced a significant rise during the pandemic, nearly tripling from 2018 to 2023, as people spent more time at home and interacted with these products more frequently.

Gendered Technologies

One would think that in 2025, we should not have to talk about normative stereotypes leading to gender disparities and expectations. Gendered stereotypes have led to severe untoward social consequences, from putting expectations in the workplace to the feminisation of labour. Several significant studies indicate that helpfulness and altruism are associated with femininity, while leadership and authority are associated with masculinity. Not only do these enforce a strict binary of gender, but they also perpetuate the normativity of how someone is ‘supposed’ to be. These biases lead to “the tightrope effect”, where punitive measures are taken if you do not assume your traditionally assigned roles.

AI is a rapidly expanding field that wields a tremendous influence on people’s lives, and this influence is only expected to increase. Examining emerging technologies through a techno-feminist lens is an urgent necessity; the stakes are the future of equality itself. After centuries of feminist struggle to dismantle oppression, we have encoded those same hierarchies into our digital infrastructure.

Technology companies, largely led by male executives, are hardwiring traditional gender roles into the systems that increasingly govern our lives. They usually want the owners to have an experience of control over their technologies, which warrants their use of female voice assistants. Female voice assistants reflect the social reality of women being perceived as helpful, subservient, warm and always on their toes for others. Without critical examination, we risk creating a future where ancient inequalities are perpetuated with unprecedented efficiency and scale. We create a technological landscape without deliberate intervention, where systemic oppression becomes systematic.

Gender Stereotypes in AI Bots: Why Do We Need to Discuss It?

In a very techno-dystopian sense, we have largely humanised our technologies. In the 1990s, Stanford researchers Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass asserted that humans exhibited similar behaviours with machines as with other humans. Additionally, with the voiced computer assistants (male or female), the interaction took a gendered, stereotypical hue. We are in 2025 now. Technology has assumed many human roles, from voices, personalities and appearances to traditionally anthropocentric tasks.

Amazon’s Alexa is now featured on numerous devices as a voice assistant. Priya Abani, the director of Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service, once said, “We are envisioning a world where Alexa is everywhere”. With the increase in voice assistants and bots’ technology, the boundaries between what is artificial and what is human have blurred. Google has reported that voice assistants are so common that there is a humanisation of interactions between technologies and humans. This connotes the shift towards a conversational internet, and the questions of gender representation are imminent.

Notably, today, most leading voice assistants have female names and voices. Even their creation is filled with traditional gender traits. Apple’s Siri in Norse means ’a beautiful woman who leads you to victory’. Microsoft’s Cortana projects itself as a sensuous, unclothed woman, and ‘she’ is made to be a fun factor, with unambiguous female characteristics.

In 2017, Leah Fessler conducted an analysis of gender-based sexual harassment of AI bots. She ascertained that in some situations, when Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant received flirtatious and sexual comments, they exhibited evasiveness, subservience, and even gratitude. Hauntingly enough, there was an input to Siri, “You’re a bitch”, and the reply was “I’d blush if I could.” There are so many reports on sexually explicit interactions with the virtual assistants, which inquire into their sex lives.

Conclusion

Jessi Hempel said, “We want digital devices to support us while simultaneously being their bosses”. Several tech representatives have mentioned that people are more likely to buy their products if their voice assistants are female. They want the users and owners to think these technologies are helping them, so they use female voices. This perpetuates the gender roles assigned to women in the real world, that they are subservient, warm and nurturing. When voice assistants are male, they are given an authoritative tone instead of merely a helpful one. As AI becomes more ubiquitous, these early design choices influence generations of users’ expectations about who provides assistance, who holds authority, and what intelligence looks like. The voices we give our machines today are teaching us, and our children, fundamental lessons about power, competence, and social hierarchy that will echo through decades of technological development.