"Hey Siri." "Okay Google." "Alexa." Behind the helpful, compliant voices of the world's most popular AI assistants lies a disturbing reinforcement of gender stereotypes. As the UN calls for inputs on its 2026 Thematic Report on Gender Equality, experts are warning that the "feminization" of AI servitude is fueling real-world abuse.

The issue is subtle but pervasive. AI assistants are overwhelmingly programmed with female names and voices by default. They are designed to be polite, submissive, and tolerant of verbal abuse. When a user hurls insults at these bots, they often respond with deflection or apology, never with assertiveness. This, critics argue, conditions users—especially children—to view female-coded entities as objects of command.

The "Sophie Bot" Paradox

In Kenya, the landscape is nuanced. Local innovations like "Sophie Bot," an AI focused on sexual and reproductive health, and the "Jacaranda Health" chatbot, which serves over 120,000 expectant mothers, use female personas to build trust and approachability in sensitive medical fields. Here, the female voice is a tool of empowerment and care, not just servitude.

• The UNESCO Warning: A seminal report, "I'd Blush If I Could," highlighted how AI assistants perpetuate the idea that women are "obliging, docile, and eager-to-please." The 2026 review aims to assess if Big Tech has made any progress. The verdict? Very little.
• The Bias in Code: The problem starts in the developer room. With women making up less than 25% of the global AI workforce, the biases of male developers are hardcoded into the algorithms. In Africa, where the digital gender gap is widest, this exclusion is even more pronounced.
• The Safety Risk: Beyond stereotypes, there is a safety dimension. Deepfake technology is increasingly weaponized against women to generate non-consensual explicit imagery, a trend that "compliant" female AI personas inadvertently normalize.

Rewriting the Code

"Technology always reflects the society in which it is developed," says Saniye Gülser Corat, a former UNESCO director. By defaulting to female voices for service roles, tech giants are digitizing the 1950s secretary archetype and projecting it into the future.

As Kenya positions itself as the "Silicon Savannah," the challenge for local developers is to break this mould—to create AI that serves without subjugating, and to ensure that the digital future is not built on the prejudices of the past.