“Ultimately, I think the them (AI) or us angle is a waste of time. We have to face the reality, and the reality is, it’s not going anywhere.”
Those are the words of trusted voiceover artist Kieran Phoenix Chantrey. We have been working with Kieran for nine years and called upon his expertise to discuss human vs AI voiceovers (VO).
He offers honest wisdom and came to our video call with a superbly timed dose of positive energy that we all need on a Monday afternoon (especially as a non-coffee drinker).
Kieran had his first voiceover project back in 2008, so it’s fair to say he is well placed to give an assessment of the change over time.
And as a provider of multimedia accessibility services since 2014 that offers human and AI solutions, we’re well-equipped to present a balanced view on this.
In this blog, we’ll explore:
- How a voiceover artist feels about AI voiceovers
- The role trust plays
- What the future looks like
- AI voice cloning
- And more
Let’s dive in!
How does a voiceover artist feel about AI VO?
“I think it’s an evolution that is unfortunately and fortunately the way things go,” said Kieran, who has also featured on our After Hours podcast.
“Technology will always bring about things that will disrupt industries.
“I could look at this as a voice actor and I could say, it’s taking my work. I could say it’s ruining X, Y, and Z, and they’re all valid points. We have to look at this model of how we can merge because that’s the reality.
“From the positive side, AI voices do make things cheaper for clients quicker – they get exactly what they need. Every quarter of a year, AI technology is just getting smarter and smarter.
“I mean, we’re moving very close to levels of AI that are a lot sooner than expected.
“At one point, you’d use AI voices and it sounded just awful. It was so choppy and intonations were all over the shop. It would actually take more time to teach the AI voice than it would a human.
“But things are moving so quickly and they are very, very good. For some projects, whether that’s a timed audio description (AD), e-learning, or just information-based projects, AI is great. It does the job. It’s a great tool to have for businesses.
Trust is the tipping point
For Kieran, it all comes down to trust.
He continued: “If we know it’s a human voiceover that has been recorded, a human has looked at the script, a human has signed that off and they’ve recorded it, trust is just innate.
“Whereas even looking at content on YouTube, if you listen to a video, the second you notice it’s an AI voice — because they’ve just pronounced something in a way where most humans would know that — people pull straight back.
“Not in every sense, but for the most part. You read the comments: ‘Oh, it’s AI.’
“It’s a real fine line where if there’s a hint of AI, the content’s trust level really goes down.
That is backed up by the data. In one study about trust and voices, the following was written:
“The results indicated that a virtual human with a low-quality text-to-speech (TTS) voice had the most variation in perceived trust, followed by a high-quality TTS voice and a recorded human voice.”
Kieran added: “It’s human instinct to trust another human. Even though I’m literally describing the same process and the difference is that it’s a machine reading it rather than a human. Especially in today’s day and age, trust in pretty much everything is very hard for people.
“We don’t know what to believe, whether it’s a news story or a narrative, so trust is becoming more sacred. A human voice may give it just that bit more credibility.”
What will the future of voiceover look like?
AI is certainly here to stay, but as of right now, Kieran says that it works for a certain type of client.
“There is an element of soul AI just can’t capture yet,” said Kieran, who read ‘The Art of Voice Acting: The Craft and Business of Performing Voiceover’ book and was inspired.
“Maybe one day they will — I don’t know.
“AI voices will continue to grow and continue to get better. And it serves a type of client where their message doesn’t matter if it’s trusted or not.”
What does the data say?
The text-to-speech market, which includes social media clips, explainer videos and the like, is only rising.
In 2026, it is worth $4.36 billion. It’s projected to be worth $7.92 billion in 2031. That’s only going one way right now.
There isn’t any specific data surrounding a decline in human voiceovers, but there is no doubting that the rise of AI voice tools is reshaping parts of the market, particularly lower-budget and high-volume content that humans would have previously been involved in.
Is voice cloning a realistic option?
Controversy does surround this topic.
There are a couple of ways to assess it for those who are open to it. It can be used for a one-off project, like we would do with AI cloning. Your voice isn’t used for anything else other than the project agreed upon.
Or, as Kieran suggests, you can train and clone your voice on your terms.
He stresses that this can be done ethically, and that voice actors shouldn’t get ripped off and sign away their rights.
Kieran offered his take: “I can say this as a voice actor, because I’ve given this a lot of thought. Going forward — and not everyone’s going to be comfortable with this — you can train and clone your voice and own and set your terms and rates.
“You want to make sure that if that’s what people want, then have skin in the game and you can clone your voice. And if someone wants to hire your cloned voice that you’re training and teaching all the time, you’re keeping it up to speed so that it’s competitive, then that’s the hybrid model.
“And of course, then if the client wants the real deal, the human version of you, now you’re getting the best of both worlds. And I think that is a way forward.
“I think that’s a good way of everyone winning and everyone staying doing what they’re doing.
“You could wake up and your AI voice has worked for you. Hey, that’s not bad.”
That being said, it’s not always plain sailing.
Kieran continued: “In the past, sadly, people have got burned because most people might have either cloned their voice unknowingly, had their voices cloned unknowingly, or they signed a contract which was written in such a way that duped them, or maybe they didn’t read it.”
In the case of Lehrman v. Lovo Inc., two voice actors filed a lawsuit against the AI voice generation company. It’s alleged that the actors’ voices were used “without authorisation to train and promote synthetic voice models.”
In July 2025, multiple of the key claims made by the actors will proceed to trial.
The industry perspective
We also caught up with Head of VoiceBox, Sophie Muller, who has worked closely with Kieran for years now, for her thoughts on the conversation.
She said: “Kieran is spot on here. His balanced point of view shows that there is a world where both AI and human voiceovers can co-exist for different purposes. This is something at VoiceBox we stand by as well.
“There is a place for both with AI working for smaller budgets and scale, and human better suited to emotion and building trust and connection with audiences.
“It’s worth saying that we fully support the EU AI Act and how this will impact AI-generated voices. Transparency with audiences and being a responsible provider are all things that we are aligned with and we encourage the full enforcement of the Act from August 2026.”
Conclusion
It was genuinely fascinating to hear Kieran’s considered point of view.
He has always been told to “bring the words to life” and it’s easy to see how he certainly does that with his fun zest for life.
Contact us today to discuss human and AI voiceovers in more detail.