Sam, the first non-binary voice assistant, has been introduced by researchers to take on Siri and Alexa.
Accenture Labs and Edinburgh-based text-to-speech technology provider CereProc have teamed up to create a non-binary AI voice, providing representation for queer people and challenging voice assistant gender biases.
According to a report this year by Juniper Research, consumers will have interacted with voice assistants on 4.2 billion devices by the end of 2020, and this figure is set to reach 8.4 billion by 2024.
The world of voice assistants has long been dominated by female voices, most famously Siri and Alexa, but research has shown that they reinforce gender bias.