In the rapidly advancing world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), more and more businesses are turning to AI-based chatbots to provide customer service and support, and better marketing and sales strategies. But beyond just creating a functional AI chatbot, there is an important decision to make: should your AI chatbot have a personality, be male or female? On International Women’s Day, we want to share why most businesses choose female personalities for their assistants and share some fun and useful information on that topic. According to Brookings, approximately 92.4% of America’s smartphone assistants market share which includes Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant, use female-sounding voices. Although the virtual assistants have since been updated to offer male-sounding voice options, they were launched with a female-sounding voice which has remained the norm.
It is up to the business team to decide on the gender identity of an AI chatbot, based on insights and research by the business development, sales and marketing, and customer support teams of the business. Choosing male or female personality (or a neutral avatar named after nature and artificial objects and others), your chatbot will also be a result of such factors as the preferred voice and tone of the chatbot, its name, avatar and appearance, chat manner, and other personality traits, as well as color palette for background, images, and other design. All of them shall be carefully designed according to the expected user perception and the goals the chatbot shall accomplish. Ultimately, the most important consideration should be creating an inclusive and respectful user experience, where users feel comfortable and engaged in the conversation, regardless of the chatbot’s gender identity. Although most businesses choose to create their AI digital assistant with a female personality, there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to choosing the gender of your AI chatbot personality. What choice some businesses have made, and what is the perception of the users of their chatbot – you will learn about it in the next paragraphs, so keep reading!
Before making the final decision about what your AI chatbot should be, it’s important to consider how gender might influence how people interact with your AI chatbot. When it comes to gender, there are a few considerations to keep in mind. First, consider how gender stereotypes may influence people’s expectations of your chatbot. Generally, people expect male chatbots to be more assertive and authoritative as a ton of voice, also associated with products and services for men, while female chatbots are thought to be more nurturing and helpful as a manner of communication and user experience. While this isn’t always the case, it is something to keep in mind. Second, consider the language used in your chatbot’s conversations. Male and female chatbots may use different language patterns, so it’s important to ensure that the language used, and the tone of voice are appropriate for the intended audience. If you’re creating a chatbot for a specific group, such as senior citizens, consider using language that is easily understood and does not use jargon.
For example, chatbots with female personalities tend to be seen as more approachable and friendly, making them ideal for customer service roles. They are also generally seen as being more helpful and sympathetic to the choice of language pattern, something that can be very useful when customers are frustrated, upset or confused. On the other hand, chatbots with male personalities are expected to be more assertive and direct. This approach can be useful for tasks that require quick and decisive action, such as handling refunds or resolving disputes. Male personality chatbots can also be more efficient as a handling customer inquiries tool. In general, it is up to the business itself what chatbot personality to create as long as the AI chatbot is created to fulfill the business tasks and goals.
This topic has been backed up by some research. According to Nowak and Fox (2018), when avatars are gendered, they can elicit gender stereotypes and people may expect those avatars to possess gendered knowledge. This could be due to the general stereotyping of men and women. The Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) framework (Nass and Moon 2000) suggests that people may interact with media agents in the same way they would interact with people, without conscious thought. People often associate women with communality, warmth, helpfulness, and nurturing, whereas men are stereotypically seen as having agency, competence, and authority (Ellemers 2018). These stereotypical responses and expectations may be projected onto chatbots as social agents. These researches show that people tend to perceive chatbot personalities as humans, so the choice of personality for your business AI chatbot will reflect on users and they will project on it their personal expectations of men and women.
By the way, have you thought if ChatGPT has male or female personality? Our team asked randomly people and most answered, it is “He/him” …
A sneak peek into the Ladies Club on the Umni platform:
As we mentioned above, businesses themselves choose what would be the personality of their AI digital assistant, a good practice is to create such, not creating just a “bot” that communicates in a robotic tone of voice because its users would not have the best experience they could. Most Umni clients have designed their chatbots with different personalities, avatars, tones of voice, and with a personality of a male or female. That’s how they accomplished gaining their customers’ interest in their chatbot so the chatbot could be more interactive and attractive and accomplish great results, therefore being a success. Here are some examples of chatbot personalities to inspire the making of your business chatbot now or plan it in the future:
Miss Fiore of Casa di Fiore SPA & Medical Hotel
The smiley and cute digital assistant of the 5-star hotel with a fairy-tale character is always available to assist the hotel guest in Bulgarian and English in a chat format and with voice assistance. Her personality is invented and created by the hotel team with a resemblance to a real girl – a model chosen for the hotel photo shoot, so the guests feel like they are talking with the girl. Miss Fiore’s avatar is sweet, with curly hair and a long blue dress – like a fairy in the beautiful garden of the hotel near the sea. Being an imaginary personage, the AI chatbot personality allows the hotel to use Miss Fiore’s avatar for cartoons, video ads, Viber sticker packs, and other fun, interactive, and attractive for customers ways creating an overall a memorable experience for the guests.
As a 5-star hotel digital assistant, Miss Fiore is with more formal tone of voice, but it is balanced with a cute smile to greet with a friendly manner all the website visitors at any time of the day. Because of Miss Fiore’s successes, we have made a case study for her, check it out if you want to meet her in the digital presence.
Ellie – the digital librarian of Varna Regional Library
Ellie is the library’s smart digital librarian – an AI chatbot that saves the time of at least 2 librarians to allow them to handle tasks that match their qualifications more. Ellie is accepted as an assistant who eases the staff’s performance by the library team that helps all readers to re-assign borrowed literature to answer all frequently asked questions during or after working hours of the library. Ellie’s avatar is created to look like a smart and witty girl that is willing instantly to help you with your requests. That’s why she is perceived as the library’s perfect employee that saves tedious typing in the messaging platforms.
The success story of Ellie you can find here or if you want to meet with her “mother” and the visionary behind this and many other digital projects of the Varna Regional Library, the director Radka Kalcheva, you can check out our interview with her. Isn’t it amazing that two women rule one big library and great results are being achieved every day? At last, the time of AI chatbots in libraries is already coming!
Artina of the translation agency Arte.doc
Artina is the digital consultant of the translation agency Arte.doc – an AI chatbot trained by the business team to answer customers’ questions about translation services 24/7. Artina’s avatar looks like an office assistant in a costume and glasses that is willing immediately to help you with the relevant information within your request. She is now in the development and training process before to be implemented soon on the business site for 24/7 online support, self-service, and easier communication. How AI could help customers of translation services, we will find out very soon!
Amika of the Association of Medical Cosmeticians
Amika – the charming digital assistant of the Association of Medical Cosmeticians – is a businesswoman from the beauty industry with an excellent look and hair, no doubt she is part of such an association. In just 48 hours of her work, Amika had over 1200 customer interactions. 370 new users met her online and 294 of them were returning users (1 time was not enough to chat with her 😉). Amika also is in training to become the perfect digital employee available 24/7/365 to assist. In addition, Amika could help with buying tickets for the International Beauty Conference 2023 and many other services. Ask her something if you want – if she doesn’t know the answers, she will learn it fast, or buy tickets for the conference, your choice!
Chokolina of 1 Meter Chocolate
So many female personality chatbots and Chokolina is one of them – the smart assistant of 1 Meter Chocolate that could help you buy chocolate for different holidays and occasions.
Chocolina’s avatar is inspired by the owner Bilyana Todorova and helps with the sales of the chocolate around the clock. Bilyana is not always on the line to answer instantly, but Chocolina is always available. After launching the chatbot, the customers immediately started ordering 1-meter chocolate with the chatbot’s help! You can meet her and buy chocolate for the upcoming Women’s Day to greet your mother, grandmother, sister, or friend. Hurry up, so she can start creating the custom-made chocolate only for you!
… and the digital Superheroes among us!
Well, there are not only female chatbots in our big chatbot family, also meet the charming guys!
Beautko of studio Beauty Point
Beautko is the chatbot of the beauty studio Beauty Point that helps with making an appointment for beauty procedures and changing or canceling appointments, and now 100% of promotional bookings are made through the chatbot. Beautko does not have an avatar yet, but his creator – the owner of the studio Desislava Despotova plans to place the chatbot in the studio physically – on a touch screen or other gadget, to turn it into another receptionist. Maybe that will happen very soon! Beautko’s success has already been recorded in a case study, check it out if you want to know what other accomplishments he achieved after his implementation.
Izgrevcho of Hotel complex “Izgreva”
Izgrevcho – the hotel AI chatbot of the hotel complex “Izgreva” that shines on the hotel website and assists the guests 24/7 before, during, and after their stay. Izgrevcho personality is created by the hotel team – funny, helpful, and smart. Customers love to chat with it. In 2022 over 16,200 customers have communicated with the hotel AI chatbot one or more times with over 82,500 interactions in Bulgarian and English. He helps the guests to book a room, choose food through the digital menu of the hotel restaurant, find the nearest pharmacy or ATM, or find the best sightseeing near the hotel to enjoy.
Izgrevcho (the “Sunrise boy”) already achieved many goals of the hotel and continues to achieve them, that’s why we have made a case study for him to show his success. Not long ago Izgrevcho acquired a voice (speech recognition) and now you can not only chat with him but also talk via voice messages for easy and fast online communication.
Maybe Izgrevcho soon will become the symbol of the small village of Banya, where the hotel is located, because they were the first to digitize in the region and Izgrevcho is trained and maintained every day to become smarter and smarter.
Beriko of New Era for Health
Beriko is the virtual assistant of New Era for Health that is providing natural products for the prevention, and improvement of health, solving health and cosmetic problems, improve, and balancing the entire body. Beriko is a smiley panda-boy who can give information about the top-selling products of the business, information about bioresonance (analysis of health condition), answer FAQs 24/7, and helps you contact the business. He can show you the promotions and guide you through the most important information on the business site. Beriko is with cheerful character. His avatar of a panda is cute, and friendly and makes you want to hug him therefore leaving a smile and comfort as an after-communication feeling! Beriko would give you valuable advice for your health and how to take care of your body, and mental and physical health. Meet Beriko if you want to convince yourself that he is helpful.
What personality your AI chatbot will depend only on your team and your vision of it. You can choose whatever you want that will correspond to your brand reputation and goals. Choose wisely before creating it so as to not need to change it later. That’s why you need to plan properly your chatbot project and follow the good practices to have the best working digital assistant on your site! Contact us if you already have an idea of what your chatbot would be so as to start instantly creating it!