Voice Actor Reportedly Responsible For Amazon Alexa Revealed

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amazon's Alexa has a voice familiar to millions: calm, warm, and measured. But like most synthetic speech, its tones have a human origin. There was someone whose voice had to be recorded, analyzed, and algorithmically reproduced to create Alexa as we know it now. Amazon has never revealed who this "original Alexa" is, but journalist Brad Stone says he tracked her down, and she is Nina Rolle, a voiceover artist based in Boulder, Colorado. The claim comes from Stone's upcoming book on the tech giant, Amazon Unbound, an excerpt of which is published here in Wired. Neither Amazon nor Rolle confirmed or denied Stone's reporting, which he says is based on conversations with the professional voiceover community, but Rolle's voice alone makes for a compelling case.

Here's how Stone writes up the process in selecting Alexa's voice: "Believing that the selection of the right voice for Alexa was critical, [then-Amazon exec Greg] Hart and colleagues spent months reviewing the recordings of various candidates that GM Voices produced for the project, and presented the top picks to Bezos. The Amazon team ranked the best ones, asked for additional samples, and finally made a choice. Bezos signed off on it. Characteristically secretive, Amazon has never revealed the name of the voice artist behind Alexa. I learned her identity after canvasing the professional voice-over community: Boulder, Colorado -- based voice actress and singer Nina Rolle. Her professional website contains links to old radio ads for products such as Mott's Apple Juice and the Volkswagen Passat -- and the warm timbre of Alexa's voice is unmistakable. Rolle said she wasn't allowed to talk to me when I reached her on the phone in February 2021. When I asked Amazon to speak with her, they declined."

They probably have her sign exclusive contract

[sinij]

Otherwise I can see pure gold marketing campaigns and gags rolling out of this. Imagine this voice actor trash talking Bezos. Pure comedy gold.

Re:

[timeOday]

I am really surprised they would rely on a single person. That gives her tremendous leverage. A few lucky individuals can end up making a mint for very little work because so many are familiar with the sound of their voice.

I wish I could use a specific voice of my choice

[50000BTU_barbecue]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Alexa in the US

[cusco]

This would be the Alexa voice in the US, the voice in the Spanish and German language versions are slightly different and I was told that UK version is as well.

Re:

[quenda]

This would be the Alexa voice in the US,

Funny how Americans often assume everything is the same elsewhere. This is why they should not be allowed to drive in Australia :)

Though I'm surprised to hear Alexa has only only one voice for the whole US. No male voice? No Southern or Coastal accents?

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

> Funny how Americans often assume everything is the same elsewhere

Was the 2014 Echo localized coming out of Lab126? Probably not. When was it? Was the Dot? Who would keep track of such things?

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

In the UK it was this guy.

https://youtu.be/ZaBt_bXlXmk [youtu.be]
https://youtu.be/drYKioAh_eo [youtu.be]

No joke, he only found out it when he heard an iPhone talking in his own voice. Used to do a lot of TV work too.

completely synthetic in 3...2...1...

[mark-t]

It wasn't that long after the identity of the voice for Apple's Siri became widely known that Apple pulled away from using voice actors in their text-to-speech synthesis entirely, and relied on mechanisms that are produced solely by software.

It wouldn't surprise me if Amazon does the same.

Why not just leave her to her privacy?

[LionKimbro]

"Hey, I stalked the voice of Alexa! Everybody on Earth has heard her voice -- don't you want to know more about her? She didn't want to talk and Amazon wants to keep her identity private, but hey -- I've got an article to write, so learn all about what I've done!"

Re:

[Krishnoid]

Anyone can contact her directly [ninarolle.com] -- I mean, she is a freelance voice-over artist and needs to, you know, book her own work. They don't have to go through Amazon.

Re:

[AntronArgaiv]

Anyone can contact her directly [ninarolle.com] -- I mean, she is a freelance voice-over artist and needs to, you know, book her own work. They don't have to go through Amazon.

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

Preferences.

[Ostracus]

So which voice do people prefer? Male, or female?

Re:

[quonset]

So which voice do people prefer? Male, or female?

I don't know about you, but when I hear, "Lie back and I'll make everything feel good", I prefer to hear a woman's voice. But to each their own.

Mind the gap

[Tim the Gecko]

There's a nice story about another familiar voice: the "Mind the gap" announcement at one of London's underground stations. Transport for London restored the original recording at Embankment station after being contacted by the announcer's widow - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-en... [bbc.com]

Other tech voices

[spaceyhackerlady]

I work with Asterisk and VoIP and hear Allison Smith a lot. I got some custom prompts for our development system to see how it all worked. In Canada you hear June Wallack everywhere, particularly for bilingual stuff. "For service in English press one. Pour la service en français faites le deux."

While developing another system I needed some voice prompts and recorded my own for testing. The Powers That Be liked them and now use them in production.

...laura

Alexa, let me speak with Alexa

[SubmergedInTech]

Rolle said she wasn't allowed to talk to me when I reached her on the phone in February 2021. When I asked Amazon to speak with her, they declined.

Did you try asking Amazon, or your Amazon Echo? Seems like the latter would let you carry on a conversation with her just fine.

Not ...

[PPH]

...Marlene Dietrich?

Particularly when you try to look some information up. "Ve vill ask ze questions!"

The denial is the proof

[Todd Knarr]

I'd say she's really the voice. If she weren't, she'd have no reason to talk to him and say "I wish it were, but sorry not me.". The only way she'd not be allowed to talk to him (seeing as she's a freelancer) is if she had an agreement with Amazon not to talk (who but Amazon would have any interest in her not talking about Alexa's voice?).

Get Samual L. Jackson for Alexa if you have one

[turp182]

It's worth the $5 to have Samual L. Jackson set my alarms and such (with profanity, which can be turned off, buy why?).

It's an impressive model of his voice, he can describe my packages and is good with formal names (classical music conductors).

Misleading

[kqc7011]

The actor has not been revealed, without proof this story is just conjecture. For all we know it was Michael Winslow doing the voice. OK, it probably was her, but don't tell us that it was Nina Rolle, without actually knowing and proving.

IRLRosie

[JWSmythe]

I choose to believe IRLRosie is the real Alexa. Not that she is, I just like that reality better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]