What will customers remember about a business when the voice answering their questions becomes the main expression of its identity?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Ruth Zive, who leads marketing at Voices, about the business and human questions surrounding AI voice. Voices is an enterprise marketplace and platform where companies can find professional voice actors, license AI voices with consent, and source custom voice data for training models. The company says its global talent network includes millions of performers and has served brands including Microsoft, Shopify, and Cisco.
For years, much of the AI voice debate focused on whether synthetic speech could sound convincingly human. Ruth believes the commercial conversation has moved toward provenance, brand integrity, permission, and usage rights. A voice can sound polished while exposing a company to reputational damage if the performer did not understand the use, the license is unclear, or the same generic voice appears in a competitor's customer experience.
Voices research cited during the interview found that 79 percent of business leaders believe inauthentic AI voices could damage brand perception. Ruth also says almost half of enterprise decision makers regard tone and emotional expression as the most important vocal factor in authenticity. That matters when a customer is frustrated, confused, or asking for help. A voice that sounds human but responds without suitable emotion can weaken trust at the exact moment a company needs to earn it.
Ruth describes responsible licensing through three ideas: compensation, control, and consent. The performer should understand how the voice will be used, retain an agreed degree of control, and receive payment that reflects the commercial use. Those decisions need to appear in the contracting, licensing, and entitlements before a model is trained or placed in front of customers.
We also consider the economic effect on professional performers. AI voice can change existing work, but Ruth argues that it can also create additional assignments when licenses are written carefully. An actor might provide the voice for an in-car assistant while continuing to record commercials in unrelated categories. Other opportunities include contact center experiences and the creation of specialized voice data used to train models. The positive case depends on clear boundaries and fair commercial terms rather than unlimited reuse.
The brand question may become even larger as customers move from websites and typed interfaces toward spoken conversations. Ruth points to BMW's careful selection of voices based on customer profile, tone, language, accent, and how each performer sounded inside the vehicle cabin. Her advice is to treat a voice as a long-term brand asset, test it in the setting where customers will hear it, and confirm that the company has the required rights before deployment.
Voice AI offers companies a more natural customer experience and gives performers access to new forms of paid work. It also raises difficult questions about disclosure, ownership, exclusivity, and trust.
Should every company now have a formal policy for choosing, licensing, and governing the voice that speaks on its behalf? Listen to the conversation and share your thoughts with me.
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[00:00:27] What happens when a customer remembers your company's voice before they remember its logo? Well, in this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm going to be speaking with Ruth Zive. She leads marketing at a company called Voices, which is an enterprise marketplace where brands can hire
[00:00:52] professional voice actors, license AI voices with consent, and source custom voice data for training models. Essentially, it's a network spanning millions of performers. And Ruth will explain today why choosing an AI voice has become a brand decision. And we'll also expand on how tone and emotional expression, how all these things can affect trust, and what responsible licensing
[00:01:20] should include before a recording even begins. And we will also discuss today consent, control, compensation, the risk of sharing a generic voice with a competitor, and why AI might create new work for performers out there when commercial terms better protect them. There's a lot of opportunities
[00:01:41] here. So if conversational AI speaks for your business, whose voice should customers hear? And on that note, I think I should introduce you to my guest right now. So thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? Absolutely. I work for a company called Voices.com. And at Voices, essentially, we match the biggest,
[00:02:09] most beloved brands, probably you could rattle them off if you gave it some thought, with the best, most perfect voices depending on their needs. And that is relative to AI voice, or, you know, we have a two decades long legacy and traditional voiceover, or even to curate data to train your voice model, we match you
[00:02:31] with the best voice. I head up marketing at Voices. So part of my role is to deeply understand market trends and how we're addressing customer needs and interests, and really how we're better or different than what's out there in the market. And I've been doing this for a couple of years at Voices, but I've been in the voice AI space for probably more than six or seven years now.
[00:02:55] Wow, that's incredibly cool. Because I think we've spent years asking whether AI could sound convincingly human. Now we're reaching the point where some people are asking the question whether a voice has the right to sound human in the first place. What are you finding here? What kind of what are people saying about this? It's a great question. And yeah, I watched that evolution happen before my eyes. I think, you know, as soon as chat GPT hit
[00:03:23] Main Street, the world was a little bit less skeptical about the ability of AI to sound authentic. And I think today, it's no longer about authenticity or deployment speed. It's more about provenance and brand integrity. So so really, we're finding our customers want to answer the question, who performed the voice? And are they representing our brand in a way that really serves
[00:03:49] our interests? Did they consent to do that? And do we really have the right to deploy this voice in the way that we need and at scale? And those questions are becoming a lot more front and center, as brands are finding that their consumers are interacting with them through a voice first AI experience. And I was looking at your research before you joined me today, which found that 79% of business leaders
[00:04:14] believe inauthentic AI voices could damage their brand perception. So what is it that makes synthetic voices feel authentic or inauthentic? And are brands underestimating? Do you think how quickly customers can just sense when when something feels wrong? Yeah, I think, you know, and our research sort of validated for us that authenticity is indeed a brand imperative. It's not just a nice to have. And I think we're all consumers. And we've all had that experience
[00:04:42] where a voice doesn't sound authentic or aligned to the brand experience that we are seeking. And we found through the same research that almost half of enterprise decision makers, they see tone and emotional expressiveness as the most important vocal factor when it comes to authenticity. Customers aren't just expecting a voice to sound human, but they want that emotional range. They want to
[00:05:09] elicit a response that is appropriate to the question that they're asking and in the way that they're asking it. So if you're frustrated on a call with an AI voice that is serving your needs as a customer, you want to feel a sense of empathy from that voice, you know, a sense of patience on the fact that you're frustrated. So those are the sorts of elements that I think evoke trust and build trust in your customer
[00:05:35] base. And that that sort of ladders up to this notion of authenticity. And I would imagine just the thought of voice cloning can create difficult questions around everything from consent, ownership, copyright, privacy, and fair compensation as well. So if a company or business leader listening wants to create an AI voice today and do it responsibly, do it the right way, what permissions and safeguards should be non-negotiable right from the outset before
[00:06:03] anyone even thinks about recording a training sample, for example? Yeah, well, I appreciate you asking that question. This sort of underpins our differentiated value at Voices and in all cases and for all use cases, we're thinking about these things up front and we're prompting our customers to do the same. So I think, you know, if that's the starting point, you're already ahead of the game. If you are asking yourself those questions at the starting point,
[00:06:29] that's a great advantage. And what we try to do is ensure that in all cases, the talent that is providing their voice for the use case is well compensated. So they need to feel good about the compensation that they're receiving. They have a sense of control so that, you know, they can weigh in on how their voice is being used. They can make the decision themselves over whether or not they want
[00:06:57] to lend their voice to that use case and that they've consented to do so. So we think about these three C's and when we engage with a client, we are locking that into the process and the contracting and the licensing and the entitlements all along the way so that at the end of that process, the brand can have the assurances that they need. And on the flip side, the talent feels good about how it was executed.
[00:07:23] And I think there's also an interesting tension here because AI is often presented as a threat to creative careers. And I do love busting myths and misconceptions because you're seeing voice actor earnings on your platform actually do the opposite. They're growing significantly. So how is AI changing the economics of professional voice work and what new opportunities are appearing for performers that are willing to license their voice?
[00:07:49] Yeah. And this is, I think, a common misconception or maybe just something that's not well understood, which is that, you know, AI is taking away all of these jobs. I think no doubt AI is changing the market for voiceover actors. There are new use cases for AI voice opening up every single day. We are, you know, deployment is happening at scale of AI voice and we are experiencing that as humans.
[00:08:16] But these new opportunities are opening up for voiceover actors and they are often outside of the domain where the voice actor is already working. So for instance, being the voice of an in-car experience, that doesn't diminish opportunities on the commercial front for that same actor, especially depending on the terms of that license. They may not be exclusive terms. They may be exclusive only to
[00:08:44] in-car assistance, for instance. That doesn't mean that you can't go and do a commercial for Pepsi. So you've just added opportunity to your portfolio. And I think that when it's executed correctly, AI can create new avenues for work. Voices is building out this hybrid economy by connecting brands and professional talent for very tailored use cases. So you can not only be doing that commercial
[00:09:11] voiceover work, but you may be lending your voice to AI voice experiences, maybe in the contact center. You may also be helping to curate or create high value, highly specialized data to clone models. And if those terms are locked down, again, it doesn't undermine your opportunity as a voice actor.
[00:09:35] And what I find incredibly fascinating here is we often talk about logos, colors, fonts, and music as brand assets, but seldom talk about somebody's voice. So as conversational AI becomes a bigger part of customer interaction, do you think companies should begin treating voice as intellectual property and managing it with the same kind of care as every other part of their brand identity? How do you see this playing out?
[00:10:02] I think so. I mean, listen, I work in marketing. You know, I've spent a lot of years optimizing and designing beautiful websites and logos and brand assets. So I have a point of view that eventually websites as we know them today are going away. We're already seeing some leading indicators of this. People are doing their research and engaging with brands and learning about brands through a
[00:10:27] conversational experience. I go to chat GPT or Claude today in my life a lot more than I go to visit a website. And I think that as voice becomes more adopted as the default channel, like we're going to type less. There's no doubt about that. We are going to talk more to engage with brands. And sometimes that conversational experience is going to be the default experience that we have. And so the only
[00:10:56] brand element that we might experience while we're speaking to an app or into our device is going to be the voice. That's going to be the only way that we remember a brand. And so I absolutely think that is going to become an element of your brand identity. I think it's really important that it should be memorable and discreet to your brand. Even today, before voice AI has been well adopted as a default
[00:11:22] channel, we already associate certain voices with brands. I think about, you know, Mickey Mouse is, you know, the Mickey Mouse voice is so associated with Disney. Or even another example that I like to give, I think of James Earl Jones as being very highly associated with CNN, for instance. So I think there is already that correlation. And as AI voice makes its way into the mainstream and becomes the
[00:11:52] default channel for brands to interact with consumers, brands are going to need to be thinking about how this is a very, very valuable piece of brand IP more than your logo or your website. And BMW, are they using a custom voice as part of their customer experience? I'm curious for business leaders listening to this conversation today, how much thought should they be going into
[00:12:16] to choosing a voice for a brand? And what kind of professional actor could bring to an AI powered experience that a generic synthetic voice simply cannot? What kind of advice would you offer to those people listening? Yeah, I love this question. So I don't think brands are thinking about this appropriately today. You know, it's almost like we've heard from so many customers and this is extremely shocking.
[00:12:42] They're just getting their voice from an employee internally who seems to sound good. They're not treating this as an opportunity. And BMW is actually very intentional along these lines. They thought about their customer profile. You know, who are they targeting? And what does this person care about? What are the elements of a voice that would likely be more resonant? They're a luxury brand.
[00:13:05] So they wanted a tone that was serious, that suggested luxury, that was, they actually wanted a male voice. And they tested certain voices in the car cabin to see how it would sound. Then they needed language and accent consideration because they wanted to launch globally. So they hand selected voices that all sounded similar, but were
[00:13:29] authentically native to certain countries. So they put a lot of care into it. My advice would be align the voice to your brand identity and your ideal customer profile, and then work with a vendor that can actually search and qualify voices based on those considerations. So because we've been doing this for 20 plus years, we can actually take those elements of voice that you are looking for and put them into our marketplace
[00:13:58] search. And we have an algorithm that will then surface to us the ideal candidates for that can meet your voice needs. So approach it that way. And don't diminish the importance of that thought process, because this is going to represent your brand out there in the wild. I love that so much. And especially the focus there on the right things are getting this right.
[00:14:25] And your research also suggests as well, for good reason, that consumers want transparency around how AI voices are created and indeed licensed. So what should that transparency actually look like in practice in an organization? Should customers always be told they're hearing an AI voice, even when that voice was ethically created with a consenting professional actor, for example? It feels a little bit murky on what they should be saying and what they shouldn't. So what do you advise here?
[00:14:53] I do think the water is getting murkier here. I've been working in this space for a while and I started out working for more than one chatbot vendor. And we always recommended to our clients that they be upfront and transparent about the fact that the customer is interacting with an AI agent or a chatbot, because I think it speaks to trust. And what you're trying to cultivate is a sense of
[00:15:21] trust with your customers. I still think that's a best practice. But to your point, as voices become more human sounding, as the lines between AI and human get blurrier and blurrier, I think that what starts to matter a lot more are those elements of consent. And the trust you want to build is not just with your customer, but also with the person behind the voice that you are putting in front of your
[00:15:50] customer. And those dots become very connected. Your customer is going to trust you more when you have launched this voice in a way that is built on a foundation of trust across the board. So I think going back to your earlier question about how do you license that voice in a way that is ethical and thoughtful, you want to make sure that you have good practices in that regard and that that is reflected in the experience that's delivered to the customer.
[00:16:18] I remember reading about, I think it was about five years ago when Amazon Echo first came out as a certain female assistant whose name I won't mention because everything will go off in my house. But there was a big conversation around giving your brand voice to this generic sounding assistant from one particular brand and the dangers of that. And a lot of people say that was one of the reasons they failed to monetize something like that. So I'd love to give people listening a valuable takeaway, especially
[00:16:48] around the importance of the voice behind that brand voice. So what should companies know before deploying this tech for commercial purposes? What separates an AI voice from a brand asset to maybe even a liability if they get that wrong? Yeah, I think it's a lot of the things that we've just talked about, you know, making sure that you've selected a voice that is aligned to your brand identity, that it isn't just a random
[00:17:15] choice that you're making, that you've put the right thought and rigor into that exercise. You know, you think about it, and again, you know, I'm a marketer. People spend, brands spend millions and millions of dollars choosing a logo, you know, because thinking is the logo is front and center in front of their customers. It's got to be memorable. It's got to be differentiated. It's got to really reflect their brand values and their brand identity. The same care needs to be given to the voice that
[00:17:40] you're choosing today. I can assure you that over the near term, your customers are going to be interacting a lot more with your voice than they will be interacting with your logo. And so I think, you know, being considerate of those elements up front is very, very important and will grow that sense of trust and make that AI experience a lot more authentic and meaningful for your customers. And then making sure that you've done that in a way that is, you know, buttoned up and is considerate
[00:18:10] of the needs and interests of the talent behind the voice that you have the right entitlements. You don't want to find out in six months that your competitor is using the same voice as you, which is a problem that a lot of our customers bump into when they just license a voice off the shelf from a vendor at a really low price point, for instance. Sort of like in the olden days when you would just pick a logo from one of those auto generators online, it's a similar kind of experience there.
[00:18:38] So I think that if you are thinking of those things from the outset, you will be in a much better position when it comes time to deploy and your customers are going to feel a lot more connected to your brand through that AI voice experience. And you said at the very beginning of the podcast here, you've been in this business for some time now, long before everyone was excited about AI and the implications and also voice tech, et cetera.
[00:19:02] So what excites you about the futures? Because the pace of change is moving so quickly at the moment and you're seeing a lot of opportunities for voice actors, et cetera. What excites you about where all this is adding? Listen, there's a lot of uncertainty on the horizon. And I think, you know, our instinct as humans is to be either scared or excited or both. I think that's just human nature. And AI isn't
[00:19:29] the first time that we've seen this type of tectonic shift because of technology. I'm excited because I see AI opening up a lot more opportunity. I think, you know, ironically for all of the talk about its evils, I think it can help us to be better connected. It can democratize information and level the playing
[00:19:53] field across the board in so many different ways. I'm excited because of where I'm sitting professionally because we are selling voices. We are connecting brands with voices that are perfect for the brand experiences that they're trying to deliver. And I just, we have seen the market explode because of how AI voice is being adopted. And that's a very exciting place to be.
[00:20:19] I say to my team all the time, what we are selling is in scarce supply and high demand. And I think as brands start to realize that the nuance in your voice, the importance of your brand voice, your literal brand voice, as that importance grows, what we're selling at voices is going to become even more valued. And the benefit of that trickles down to the actors behind the voices ultimately. And we're
[00:20:47] seeing the talent community really rally around this opportunity. They're starting to be less scared and more excited. And that's very encouraging to me as well, based on what it is that we do. Yeah, as I said, I love what you're doing here. And I cannot think of anything worse than a big brand handing their voice of their brand over to a generic sounding AI bot. But the fact that you're using
[00:21:11] many millions of real human actors across the globe who trust voices to support their interests and help them find meaningful work, and they're seeing a significant increase, I think, busts quite a few myths. And for anyone listening that wants to find out more information, can you tell them where they need to go? And also maybe tell them a little about the kind of process, how it works and how they can get
[00:21:34] up and running. Yeah, I would say whether you're an actor that wants to really explore ways in which you can make money with your voice, or you're a brand that's looking to find the perfect voice for your use case, visit us at voices.com. In both cases, the website is a great place to start. But the way that it works is that we gather information about your project to understand your needs. And then we
[00:22:03] undertake our best practices process using technology in the background to deliver the services to match you with the perfect voice for what it is that you're looking for. And the process is pretty straightforward. And we use, like I said, a lot of algorithms and technology in the background to make sure that we can deliver those voices very, very quickly, and very efficiently. So one of the things our customers appreciate is the speed with which we can move, whether that's for AI voice or voice data or
[00:22:33] voiceover. We've been doing this for a while, we know how to find the perfect voice, no matter the use case. So the best place to start is voices.com. I'm on LinkedIn talking about a lot of the stuff that we're seeing in the market. So feel free to connect with me. And I would say those are the two best places to reach us. And one of the other things that stands out when you visit the website
[00:22:56] there is just how many huge, big brands that are using the voices there and also some very small and medium sized businesses clear that you could you serve all markets. I would urge people to check that out. If you go to the show notes of this episode over at Tech Talks Network, I'll include all the links, including your LinkedIn and encourage people listening to check it out and learn more about this, whether you're a big brand or a voice actor, certainly lots to take away. But thanks for sharing
[00:23:24] your story today. I appreciate that, Neil. This has been great. Thanks so much for having me. I think Ruth's advice today gives business leaders a useful starting point. Before choosing an AI voice, maybe decide what the brand should sound like. Who should perform that voice? Where will it be used? How long does the license last? And how the actor involved here is
[00:23:48] going to get paid? Because a convincing voice can still create legal, reputational and human problems when these questions are left right up until deployment. So professional performers, they can contribute to in-car assistance, contact centers, voice models and specialized training data without abandoning traditional commercial work, provided the terms are clear and limited.
[00:24:15] So a massive thank you to Ruth for explaining why compensation, control and consent belong inside the process from the very beginning. And also talking about the opportunities for both brands and performers, what they can learn about AI voice and customer voice and customer voice data. Remember, go to voices.com to find out more information there. And for everybody listening today,
[00:24:40] as voice becomes a common way to meet a company, will customers recognize your voice? And will they recognize it for the right reasons? A lot to think about there. Remember, you can connect with me at techtalksnetwork.com. Send me a message and check out the event page as well. I'm going to be at a lot of events up until the end of the year. So I'd love to hear from you if you are a regular listener. But that is it for now. Thanks for listening as always. Bye for now.