Cats can recognize voice commands.
They simply don’t care to respond.
I tell one of my cats to do something and they look at me like “what the hell do you want?”.
Cats will do things if there is a food reward for it. In other words, they don’t work for free.
CC
Our Siberian Husky is like that. She’ll be VERY responsive when she knows there’s a piece of chicken as the reward. Otherwise, she’ll just sit there and blink, pretending she doesn’t understand the command. She also grooms herself like a cat too.