Media and technology scholar Belinda Amartey has cautioned against the growing use of feminized artificial intelligence in public-facing technologies, warning that such designs risk reinforcing gender stereotypes around care, obedience, and emotional labor.

Speaking to Joy News, she said many AI systems including virtual assistants, automated customer service platforms, and chatbots are designed with feminine voices, names, and personalities.

“These systems are presented as friendly, patient, and endlessly accommodating,” Amartey said.

“But those traits are not neutral. They reflect cultural ideas about femininity and care historically attached to women’s labor.”

She warned that repeated interaction with compliant, feminized systems can normalize unequal power relations and reinforce expectations that emotional responsiveness should be freely available.

Amartey noted that the implications are significant in sectors such as banking, healthcare, and public services, where AI is increasingly used to manage complaints and sensitive interactions.

“In these spaces, AI does more than provide information,” she said. “It manages emotion and de-escalates tension. That mirrors work long feminized and undervalued.”

She also cautioned that feminized AI may increase user trust, encouraging people to share personal data without fully understanding how it is collected or used.

Amartey, a doctoral researcher at the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at the University of Texas at Dallas, called for greater scrutiny of gendered design choices in AI.

“Ethical AI requires more than correcting data bias,” she said.

“We must question the social values being built into these systems.”