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You are here: Home / Feature / Who Is the Voice of Siri?

Who Is the Voice of Siri?

February 29, 2012 by Robin Parrish 53 Comments

Update 10.04.13: According to an expose on CNN, the original voice of Siri has finally been identified. It’s Susan Bennett of Atlanta, Georgia, an accomplished voiceover actress whose familiar voice can also be heard in announcements at the Atlanta airport and countless TV commercials, radio voiceovers, narrations, jingles, and much more.

Here‘s CNN’s full report on the matter, complete with extensive proof that Bennett is indeed the iconic, familiar voice of Siri. Reportedly, she decided to come forward now that Apple has replaced her voice with two new ones — one female, one male — as of iOS 7. Embedded below is CNN’s televised report on Bennett.

Original article:

Having (finally!) had a chance to try out Siri for myself, listening to her intelligent voice and getting her remarkably accurate help on a variety of tasks… I can’t help wondering who the voice-over artist is.

If you live in the U.K., your Siri, a male virtual assistant named “Danny,” is voiced by one Jon Briggs, a former tech journalist. There’s a whole big story that goes along with this — apparently, Briggs was hired to do his voice-over work for the company that first invented Siri, but his voice recordings were part of what Apple acquired when they purchased Siri several years ago. So now he’s the official British voice of Siri, even though he was never hired by Apple. So he’s not bound by any contract with Apple to never speak about his work.

But here in the U.S., our Siri is female. So who recorded her voice?

Apple ain’t saying. Not surprising, since Apple’s every movement is hidden behind more security and secrecy than the Vatican. No doubt whoever she is, Apple had her sign a big stack of NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). Yet I wonder what Apple hopes to achieve by keeping the voice-over artist’s identity a secret. Are they trying to prevent her from being hired by Google or some other competitor to voice their Siri competitor software? That would sure suck for the voice-over artist. Can you imagine giving your voice to something as high-profile as Siri, and not being able to put it on your resume?

I’ve spent hours searching online to find out anything I can about the woman who voiced Siri. Not only is there nothing to be found, I was surprised to discover that no one is asking.

Well, I think we should ask. Not because I want to expose Apple’s biggest secrets to the world or anything. I just think credit should be given where it’s due. This woman has a voice that’s heard all over the United States on a daily basis. Even people who don’t have an iPhone 4S know what she sounds like, thanks to Apple’s TV commercials and the wider cultural impact the software has had. Hers has quickly become one of the most famous and recognizable voices in the world — and yet no one has a clue who gave her her voice.

I want to know. Don’t you?

Filed Under: Feature, iPhone Tagged With: Apple secrets, features, iPhone 4S, siri

About Robin Parrish

Unathletic, uncoordinated tall man with endless creativity stampeding through his overactive brain. Comes with beard, wife, and two miniature humans.

Comments

  1. Kiljoy616 says

    February 29, 2012 at 8:10 pm

    I could be there is no real person behind it. Look at some of the Japanese singer which where later discovered to be multiple women voices created into one seamless voice men liked.

    Reply
    • Robin Parrish says

      February 29, 2012 at 8:38 pm

      It’s possible, I guess. But doesn’t it stand to reason that if the UK voice of Siri is a single individual, that the US one would be as well?

      Reply
  2. D.DITSCHKER says

    March 16, 2012 at 9:21 pm

    I think that Siris voice in the U.S. sounds like Lana Parrilla.She is on the ABC show Once Upon A Time.

    Reply
    • C.Q. says

      June 2, 2012 at 1:50 pm

      I agree. She sounds exactly like Lana Parrilla.

      Reply
    • gail bunner says

      August 19, 2012 at 10:38 pm

      I totally agree, the voice is Lana Parilla.

      Reply
  3. Cm Causey says

    April 30, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    Siri’s voice reminds me of the radio doctor from the movie Sleepless in Seattle.

    Reply
    • Jason says

      January 5, 2013 at 3:32 pm

      I was thinking the same thing. My wife is watching Sleepless in Seattle in the other room. I was like, what the heck is Siri doing in that movie.

      Reply
  4. EagleMan says

    May 4, 2012 at 3:41 pm

    Siri is a digital computerized voice – not a “real” person

    Reply
    • Robin Parrish says

      May 5, 2012 at 9:30 am

      Without proof, I have trouble swallowing that. The British voice of Siri (a male voice) is a real person. Why wouldn’t the American voice be a real person, too?

      Reply
    • Joe macey says

      June 18, 2012 at 7:54 am

      No. Siri is real. I promise you I know for a fact…

      Reply
    • Matthew says

      January 4, 2013 at 6:56 pm

      SOMEONE HAD TO RECORD IT.

      Reply
    • Ino says

      June 11, 2015 at 6:37 pm

      i think she sound like a not real persons

      Reply
  5. RW says

    May 12, 2012 at 1:04 am

    Majel Barrett?

    Reply
    • Endroux says

      May 14, 2012 at 10:08 pm

      @rw…. That would be too funny..” maybe for the enterprise edition iphone….

      Reply
    • Lisa in Baltimore says

      May 14, 2012 at 11:21 pm

      She died over 5 years ago- unless they sampled her voice from the all the Star Trek series which I doubt. I’m going with real but an unknown for property protection.

      Reply
  6. Karen says

    May 14, 2012 at 9:17 pm

    Tracy Grandstaff AKA Daria?

    Reply
  7. Charles says

    May 14, 2012 at 10:20 pm

    Anyone have a Garmin GPS unit? I’d say Garmin’s “Jill” is also Apple’s Siri.

    Reply
    • Patrizia says

      May 24, 2012 at 11:20 pm

      If it’s a real person it could be that Apple doesn’t want her ‘face’ to be revealed so as not to allow anybody to like her or dislike her. As Siri ‘the voice’ you can imagine her to have any face that you like.

      Reply
  8. anddep says

    June 8, 2012 at 7:20 pm

    how about that woman that plays siri on the big bang theory? she hot and sounds like siri

    Reply
  9. Austin says

    June 10, 2012 at 1:03 am

    I live in Seattle and I was on my iPhone at one of Seattle’s main transit hubs, and it has an AI voice warming of incoming trains, times, everything you’d need. It was Siri’s voice. Mind blown

    Reply
  10. Dennis says

    June 11, 2012 at 5:39 am

    The girl from Bones..Michaela Conlin

    Reply
    • Joe macey says

      June 18, 2012 at 7:57 am

      I know who she is…I’m related to her. Wish I could tell you more…I will tell u this. She’s American. A real women. A very famous voice. Done tons of commercials and lots of other stuff.

      Reply
      • auramac says

        June 24, 2012 at 1:49 am

        I heard her on TV tonight. I’m pretty sure it was her- a real person. If Apple aint telling, then neither am I.

        Reply
  11. esp says

    June 23, 2012 at 1:50 am

    http://www.ciralarkin.com/

    Reply
    • Dean says

      July 3, 2012 at 5:55 am

      I don’t have nor have I ever used an iPhone, but Cira Larkin does sound like the voice from the commercials. Good catch esp.

      Reply
      • Dean says

        July 3, 2012 at 6:01 am

        It is Cira Larkin. In the demos section of her website it has a Siri sample as #9. Siri = Cira. Clever.

        Reply
        • Robin Parrish says

          July 3, 2012 at 1:03 pm

          That demo sample can’t be trusted… It’s a parody, and it’s not using samples of Siri’s real voice.

          I’m not saying that Cira Larkin isn’t the voice of Siri. She could be. Her voice does sound similar. But the voice in that demo video doesn’t use the same vocal intonations as the real Siri. You can tell it’s vocal lines recorded by Larkin. Each word Siri uses was recorded separately (or possibly in short phrases). The lines in this demo were recorded all at once, in a broken fashion meant to mimic Siri.

  12. Ben says

    July 8, 2012 at 1:07 am

    The narrator on my big fat gypsy wedding on TLC is the voice of Siri for sure.

    Reply
  13. Daryl says

    July 9, 2012 at 7:43 pm

    Here in the UK we have been having the same discussion.

    On my Mac Mini computer, I downloaded the British English male voice “Daniel” for my voice commands, and when I heard the adverts here in the UK for the iPhone 4S, and heard about “Siri’ – and heard it talking, I knew straightaway it was Apple’s “Daniel” voice, which I have on my OS X Lion.

    Finally, sleep prevailed! 🙂 lol

    Reply
  14. shawna says

    July 11, 2012 at 3:21 pm

    I believe the voice of VIKI from the movie I Robot is the same.

    Reply
  15. Hasan says

    July 15, 2012 at 12:12 pm

    I don’t know…but after watching Episode 14 of The Big Bang Theory ‘The Beta Test Initiation’ of Season 5…in the last scene where Rajesh Kuthrapali goes on to meet the love of his life “SIRI”…the girl who talks back to him is like 100% like the voice of SIRI :D…you guys should watch the ending of that episode coz im sold on it 🙂

    Reply
  16. Lee says

    July 22, 2012 at 5:08 pm

    I read the other day who gave their voice for Siri, now I can’t remember what actress I was reading about…but it definitely said that she was the voice of Siri!

    Reply
  17. Sean says

    July 24, 2012 at 11:55 am

    There seems to be a little confusion over what Siri’s voices are and how they are created…

    When Jon Briggs (the voice of Siri in the UK) recorded his voice for Scansoft (now Nuance) five years ago, they asked him to record 5000 sentences in a *flat monotone*.

    Those 5000 sentences include every phoneme heard in the English language, as well as some additional ones that might not be part of ordinary English, but may be required for famous (foreign) names, loan words and common foreign language phrases, such as “Je ne sais quoi”.

    The same speech synthesis technique is used for all the Siri voices (and the new voices in OS X Lion too), but the files are pretty big. “Daniel”—the voice used for Siri in the UK—is a roughly 500MiB download. A big chunk of that is the voice data itself, which is why he voice isn’t *quite* as good in Siri as it could be: the only way to fix that synthetic effect would involve hiring voice artists to record those 5000 phrases repeatedly using different intonations and stresses.

    All the pitch and stress changes you hear are therefore added by the software during playback. This is why Siri still sounds a little synthetic, but rather less so than the older, entirely synthesised voices of old.

    Reply
  18. James Horton says

    August 1, 2012 at 7:23 pm

    The voice of Siri, is the same voice on my Sync system in my Ford Focus. When I want to make a phone call from the car, the voice comes on asking for a command. Same voice in the I-phone ad with Scorcese.

    Reply
  19. bart says

    August 6, 2012 at 7:49 am

    I;m sure it’s Tress MacNeille of Futurama and Simpsons

    Reply
  20. Visibly Shaken says

    August 19, 2012 at 5:11 pm

    You are all wrong. You were not there for the recordings and so you are speculating with celebrity guesses, all of which are incorrect. I know for a FACT that the voice of Siri is *Kathryn Nymoen*. She is a professional voice actor who lives in the Silicon Valley. She also sings (church), which helps in this highly technical line of work. By the way, the UK male voice talent is in breach of contract for revealing aspects of text-to-speech production and is lucky that Nuance/Scansoft is not suing him (…or maybe they are).

    Reply
    • Will says

      October 4, 2013 at 2:19 pm

      Guess who’s wrong!

      Reply
  21. pstiegman says

    September 17, 2012 at 11:33 pm

    I believe that the samples for SIRI came from Kate Weiman, same husky intonations.

    Reply
  22. SL Moore says

    September 18, 2012 at 9:51 pm

    Are you sure it isn’t Connie Chung?

    Reply
  23. Ozsuzie says

    October 1, 2012 at 11:51 pm

    I know the voice of Siri in Australian phones is Karen Jacobsen. She is also the ‘Aussie Karen’ voice in many GPS units. http://www.thegpsgirl.com

    Reply
  24. Carlos says

    February 23, 2013 at 6:41 pm

    I know US female Siri is not a female.

    Reply
  25. amanda says

    June 11, 2013 at 5:07 pm

    there’s a voice actress named Lauren Martin who sounds eerily similar to Siri. imdb her and listen to her voice.

    Reply
  26. JG says

    June 13, 2013 at 2:13 pm

    I think it is Lorelei King

    Reply
  27. John says

    July 2, 2013 at 12:53 am

    Judi Durand is the voice of Siri.

    Reply
  28. Susan says

    July 23, 2013 at 1:13 am

    http://www.worldcat.org/title/winslow-homer-society-and-solitude/oclc/213862021

    I think whoevere did the majority of the narration for this documentary about Winslow Homer is the voice of Siri. Possibly Susan Howe? Just a guess, but I have a good ear for recognizing voices.

    Reply
  29. B says

    July 29, 2013 at 10:15 am

    Orlagh Cassidy

    Reply
    • KimberlySue says

      November 16, 2017 at 3:43 pm

      I know this is an old post, but I just listened to a James Patterson audiobook and I honestly thought the female voice was Siri reading a webpage. Come to find out, it was Orlagh Cassidy. MUST be here. 100% belief in my mind, couldn’t be anyone else.

      Reply
  30. YoMamma says

    August 4, 2013 at 9:05 am

    It’s Morgan Freeman…

    Reply
  31. Modidi says

    August 15, 2013 at 2:39 pm

    Maybe Shazam knows who she is 😉

    Reply
  32. Foundit says

    October 4, 2013 at 5:09 am

    It is susan benett

    Reply
  33. Ed g says

    October 4, 2013 at 8:01 am

    Susan Bennett

    Reply
  34. Doug says

    February 5, 2014 at 12:29 am

    Susan Bennett of Atlanta Georgia
    Don’t believe me? Just ask Siri who was the original voice of Siri

    Reply
  35. Gare Moore says

    November 16, 2018 at 1:18 pm

    I said this on a different website, Alan Schwartz is the voice of Siri. Google him and you can find it. ??

    Reply

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