You might be surprised to know that Siri is not just the faceless voice that helps you set alarms and tells you the score of the basketball game. Wondering, “who is the voice of Siri?” Read on to find out.
#1 Who Is The Voice Of Siri?
The voice of the American Siri actually belongs to 68-year-old Susan Bennett of Atlanta, Georgia. But before Siri, Bennett’s voice already had a place in the commercial world
#2 You Likely Heard the Voice of Siri Before You had an iPhone
Before she was the voice of Siri, Bennett had worked for many years as a voice actor. For her first job, she provided the voice for ‘Tillie the All-Time Teller’ as one of the first ATMs. Bennett’s voice has also been used for the public address system in all Delta Air Lines terminals worldwide. You’ve also likely heard her voice in commercials for McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, VISA, Goodyear, and many others.
#3 The Voice of Siri Didn’t Know She was going to be the Voice of Siri
Did you know companies can “buy your voice” if you are a voice actor? That’s what happened to Bennett, as well as Siri voice actor Jon Briggs, the male version of Siri from the UK. What’s stranger is that Apple did not inform either voice actor that they had been chosen to be the new voice of iPhones everywhere. Susan Bennett Siri confesses,
“I had really ambivalent feelings. I was flattered to be chosen to basically be the voice of Apple in North America, but having been chosen without my knowledge was strange. Especially since my voice was on millions and millions of devices.”
Apparently Bennett engaged in a month-long voice-acting job with a company called Scansoft, now a part of Nuance. She assumed that she was recording sounds to be used for interactive voice response (the voice that tells you “Press 1 for customer service” over the phone), as she had done many times before.
#4 Voicing Siri Wasn’t Easy Work
While Bennett was recording for Scansoft, she spent 4 hours a day for a month talking and making a wide range of noises. This was done to make sure that Siri was able to have an appropriate range of syllables to respond to your every whim. But it wasn’t all fun and games. “There are some people that just can read hour upon hour upon hour, and it’s not a problem. For me, I get extremely bored … So I just take breaks. That’s one of the reasons why Siri might sometimes sound like she has a bit of an attitude,” Bennett said with a laugh. “Those sounds might have been recorded the last 15 minutes of those four hours.”
Eight years later, Apple purchased Bennett’s voice from Nuance, and without notifying Bennett, Siri was born.
#5 Identifying Siri Took Some Effort, too
Although the voice of Siri is widely known now, the story took some effort to crack. CNN reporter Jessica Ravitz (with Bennet’s permission) broke the story in late-2013. Although Bennett had known since late-2011, she decided to keep the news to herself until the public started wondering, who is Siri? CNN hired audio forensics expert Ed Primeau to confirm for sure that Bennett was the voice of Siri. “They are identical — a 100% match,” he said.
#6 Goodbye Bennett, Hello… Who?
Prior to iOS 7, Bennett held reign as the American Siri. However, with newer iOS systems, the voice of Siri is anyone’s guess. Apple is very secretive about the interworking of the company, so we won’t hear the answer from them anytime soon. As far as anyone can guess, the new Siri is likely a mashup of many people’s voices. Who knows, the next time you are asking Siri where to find the best Chinese restaurant, you may just be talking with yourself.