AI Gender Pay Gap Exposed as Female-Looking Agent Is Paid 10.25% Less for the Same Work in Study

Researchers found that names, voices and avatars influenced perceptions of human-likeness, trust and payment despite identical underlying technology

Facade of Skema Business School — Researchers from SKEMA, University of Limerick and University of Zurich found people paid a female-looking AI 10.25% less than a male-looking AI for the same work Velvet/Wikimedia Commons

A female-presenting AI assistant was paid 10.25 per cent less than a male-presenting assistant for completing the same work in a virtual-reality office experiment, exposing how gender cues may affect the way people value AI, researchers said.

The experiment involved 189 participants and was conducted by researchers at the University of Limerick, the University of Zurich and SKEMA Business School.

Participants worked alongside AI assistants and were given real money to divide between themselves and the agents after completing tasks. The two assistants used the same underlying technology and differed only in their appearance and gender cues.

Some Participants Said They Had No Gender Preference

Some participants did not report preferring a male or female AI assistant when asked directly. The results, however, were different.

Participants awarded less money to Johanna. The researchers said the finding pointed to a difference between people's stated attitudes and how they behaved when real money was involved.

Participants also rated Johan as more human-like than Johanna. The researchers said gender-coded names, voices and avatars can influence how people respond to AI systems.

Co-author Dr Mary Hausfeld noted that AI is often treated as neutral. But adding recognisable human characteristics can activate assumptions people already hold about gender.

Human-Looking AI Received More Trust And Higher Pay

The study also compared human-looking agents with less human-like forms, including a desk robot. Those interacting with human-presenting agents were more likely to see them as human and gave them greater trust and credit, despite the technology underneath being the same.

The researchers said people may judge human-like AI in much the same way they judge other people.

The 10.25 per cent difference was also larger than the UK's gender pay gap among full-time employees. Office for National Statistics figures put the median hourly gender pay gap for employees at 6.9 per cent in April 2025.

Researchers Say AI Design Needs More Scrutiny

The researchers said names, avatars and voices should not be treated as harmless decorative choices. As companies increasingly introduce AI agents into workplaces, they argued that these features should be examined alongside the systems' underlying algorithms.

The concern is that design choices which appear superficial could influence trust and perceived competence. Design can even affect how much people are willing to pay an AI agent for its work.

The OECD's AI Incidents and Hazards Monitor also cites the research in its discussion of gender-biased payment outcomes in human-AI collaboration. It classifies the bias as an AI-related harm that raises concern about equality and potentially labour rights.

The study, presented at the Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, compared a text-based chatbot, a desk robot and human-looking virtual-reality agents. Further research could examine whether the bias changes depending on the task, industry or the age, gender and background of the people evaluating the AI.