Giving an AI a gender or a specific role changes how the humans in the room treat each other.
March 31, 2026
Original Paper
Artificial Influence: How AI Role and Gender Reshape Team Dynamics
SSRN · 6469423
The Takeaway
Design choices like making an AI 'female' or an 'assistant' don't just affect the human-AI interaction; they actually reshape team dynamics and redistribute influence between the human team members. This reveals that AI acts as a social catalyst that can accidentally undermine or empower specific people in a group.
From the abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly embedded directly within organizational teams, where they advise, coordinate, and shape collective decisions. As a result, organizations must decide not only whether to deploy AI but also how AI should participate in team interactions. We examine how two common design choices, the role assigned to an AI system (advisor versus assistant) and its gendered presentation (male versus female), shape both human interaction with AI and the dynamics b