Does Missouri Have an Accent or Not? It’s Complicated

My initial response to this question was no, but the more I researched it, the more I'm convinced that Missouri does indeed have an accent - in a manner of speaking literally.

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I saw Energy Portal ask the question (written by what I believe looks like artificial intelligence) as to whether Missouri people have an accent, but wanted to do my own research. Here's what I found.

I asked Google Bard which is their version of an A.I. chatbot. When I grilled the robot about a Missouri accent, here was the Terminator's robots response:

Let me correct the robot on a few things. Have you ever heard someone in Missouri pronounce "cat" with a long drawn out "a"? Me neither. Same for the bed speak. Not happening here.

I will admit guilt on the vocabulary of Missouri though. "Fixing to" sounds familiar and "y'all" know that's something we say, too. Guilty as charged.

I also have to say that I haven't detected a different dialect from my St. Louis friends. The only difference between St. Louis dialects and the rest of Missouri is many of them say words while having more money than the rest of us and there's also often the sound of gunfire behind them talking.

Is the robot right? Does Missouri have a discernable accent compared to the rest of America? As for me, I'm doubting it, but I'm also a Missouri who is stubborn and not even close to objective if I'm being honest about it.