Female-presenting AI agents received significantly less monetary reward than male-presenting agents for the same work in a new workplace experiment, highlighting how gender presentation can influence human-AI interactions.
The study, titled “Human-Like and Male? How AI Assistant Design Relates to Trust and Monetary Reward at Work in VR,” was conducted by researchers from the University of Limerick, University of Zurich and SKEMA Business School. It involved 189 participants completing workplace tasks in a virtual reality environment.
Participants interacted with several AI assistants, including a text-based chatbot, a desk robot and two human-like agents called Johan and Johanna. The two human-like assistants had the same underlying capabilities and were designed to perform the same tasks.
After completing the work, participants were given real money to distribute as rewards. Johanna, the female-presenting AI agent, received 10.25% less than Johan, the male-presenting agent. Researchers also found that Johan was perceived as more human-like, while the two agents received broadly similar ratings for their work.
The findings are notable because many participants said during interviews that an AI assistant’s gender would not affect how they treated it. Their actual reward decisions, however, showed a difference.
The researchers said the results suggest that an AI agent’s appearance and presentation may influence perceptions of trust, contribution and value, even when the underlying technology is identical. The study was published as part of the ACM proceedings for NordiCHI 2026.

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