034 - Susan Bennett (SIRI) Interview

Bennett's career began in 1974 when she was recorded as the voice of First National Bank of Atlanta's "Tillie the All-Time Teller."[4] She has recorded messages for the public address system in all Delta Air Lines terminals worldwide, as well as voicing e-learning software and GPS navigation software,[5] and telephone systems.[6] Bennett's voice has also been used in numerous local and national television advertisements for Ford, Coca-Cola, Fisher-Price, McDonald's, The Home Depot, Goodyear, VISA, Macy's, Hot Pockets, Club Med, and Cartoon Network, among others. In June 2005, the software company ScanSoft was looking for someone to be the voice for a database project involving speech construction. ScanSoft inquired with GM Voices and selected Bennett, who happened to be present when the scheduled voice-over artist was absent.[7] She worked in a home recording booth for the entire month of July 2005, more than four hours each day, reading phrases and sentences. The recordings were then concatenated into the various words, sentences, and paragraphs used in the Siri voice.[6] Bennett only became aware she was the voice of Siri when a friend contacted her through email in October 2011. Despite Apple not having acknowledged or confirmed its use of Bennett, audio-forensics experts hired by CNN expressed 100 percent certainty that Bennett is the voice of Siri.[6] For more info on this and other episodes, head over to mikelenzvoice.com.