The voice choice

some people feel uncomfortable bossing around a subservient robot, particularly if that robot’s been given a female persona. at this point, most assistants are pretty immovable in this regard: alexa doesn’t support anything other than a female voice, though you can change its wake word to “echo”, “amazon”, or (excellently) “Computer” to at least cement its position as a digital entity.

google assistant can use one of multiple voices, including some celebrity cameo recordings. siri, though, is flexible enough to adopt a male or female voice, in an accent of your choice, on whatever platform you use it on. go to settings > siri on iOs, or apple > system Prefs > siri on macOs.

there is, or at least will be, a middle ground: creative agency Virtue has developed a gender–neutral voice called Q, tuned to between 145hz and 175hz so as to fall between the usual vocal ranges. whether any of the major players will decide to license it is, as yet, unclear, but it’s an interesting proof of concept.