ScotRail AI voice trained on voiceover artist's accent without consent
Scottish voiceover artist Gayanne Potter alleged that ReadSpeaker and ScotRail used her accent to train an AI voice announcer called Iona without her consent. Following complaints from Potter and passengers about the voice's quality, Transport Scotland directed ScotRail to replace the system.
What happened
ScotRail introduced the AI voice 'Iona', provided by ReadSpeaker, in May 2025 to replace pre-recorded human announcements on some services. The voice was trained using Scottish voiceover artist Gayanne Potter's accent without her consent, according to Potter.
Potter discovered her voice had been used to create the AI announcer and described hearing a 'dreadful' robotic version of herself. She urged ScotRail to scrap Iona and stated her voice was being used as an AI clone without her permission.
Reported impact
Potter said competing with a robotic version of her own voice added difficulty to sustaining a career in the creative industry. Some passengers also criticized the voice on social media, describing it as 'weird' and 'unnatural'.
Index analysis
The incident involved unauthorized use of a named individual's voice characteristics to train an AI system for commercial deployment. ReadSpeaker provided the system while ScotRail deployed it for public-facing announcements.
Governance controls
Transport Scotland directed ScotRail to replace Iona after the issue was raised directly with ministers through correspondence and parliament. ScotRail began working to implement an alternative voice 'as soon as practicable', though it has not confirmed whether the replacement will be a human recording or another AI-trained voice.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.