14 DAY TRIAL // Google added a male voice for its assistant, bringing an extra choice for people that wanted to have this option.
If there’s something all the companies that build mobile operating systems have in common, is that all of their assistants have female voices. No rule says the assistant’s voice has to be female, but that’s what’s happening.
Neither men nor women had any objections about this choice, which is strange, to say the least. In any other domain, people would have argued that it’s a form of discrimination, but that’s not true for mobile devices. Siri already comes with male and female voices, and it's nice to see that Google is also coming along.
Male voice for Google Assistant
Google is probably trying to stay ahead of the curve, and choose between men and women available to everyone, even if they didn’t ask for it. The option is just there, and it can be changed by users.
The new setting can be found under Preferences in Google Assistant or Google Home, and Assistant Voice. Since the assistant never had a name, people will have a choice between Voice I and Voice II. It sounds robotic as well, so the tradeoff is not really worth it, unless you really, really want to.
It’s important to mention that the new voices might not be available to everyone just yet, so if you can’t find the option to change it you’ll have to wait for an update.
Another interesting side effect is that other companies might want to do the same. Samsung even Microsoft will most likely go the same route, now that both Google and Apple have it.
To be fair, it would also be a good thing if Google would try to make the voice sound a little bit more natural. That robotic inflection is more than annoying.