From Maria, used by Austrian Airlines, to Bulgarian Ava, Kate, Eva. What they have in common is that they are all chatbots that answer questions from their users. Also, they all have female names. Chatbots differ from voice assistants because their output is usually written text rather than spoken words. The world-famous virtual assistants Siri, Alexa and Cortana also have female names and voices.
The reasons
There are a huge number of studies that show that people prefer the sound of a female voice. Other research has found that women tend to articulate vocal sounds more clearly, making women easier to understand, especially in the workplace. However, there is also evidence that women can receive complaints about their voiceovers. If a person types in Google “female voices are”, the top search result will end this sentence with the word “annoying”.
Since the AI industry is dominated by female voices, it should come as no surprise that creating automated systems for male voices can be extremely difficult. A good example to illustrate the case comes from Google. In 2016, Google launched “Google Assistant,” and the reason the tech giant chose a gender-neutral name was because Google wanted to launch its new voice assistant with a male and female voice. Unfortunately, the systems Google used to create its new assistant were only trained using data with female voices, meaning they perform better with female voices than male voices. The team working on Google Assistant strongly advocated for a male and female voice, but the company decided not to create a male one after realizing what a challenge it was.
Several AI voice automation systems now come with a male voice option. However, the fact is that the default voice of most voice assistants is female and most of them have a female name.
The creators of these voice assistants have faced criticism for choosing female voices, as they may subliminally confirm outdated social constructs and gender biases that women are submissive, quiet, polite and here to help others.
