You’ve Been Talking To Susan Bennett For Years And Didn’t Know It

Back in 2011, Apple introduced Siri, the iPhone’s “intelligent assistant.” Her voice was confident, clear, and a little cheeky, so familiar that millions of users felt like they knew her. But for years, the identity of Siri’s real human voice was a mystery.

The secret was finally revealed in 2013: Susan Bennett, a voice actress and singer from Atlanta, Georgia, was the original voice of Siri in the United States. Bennett’s journey to becoming one of the most recognizable voices in tech actually started long before the iPhone. In July 2005, she was hired by a company called ScanSoft (later acquired by Nuance) to record thousands of phrases, sounds, and syllables. She spent four hours a day in a studio for an entire month, reading seemingly nonsensical sentences designed to capture every possible combination of the English language.

At the time, Bennett had no idea her voice would be chopped up, synthesized, and reborn as Siri. When the iPhone 4S launched, even she was surprised. She told CNN: “A friend emailed me and said, ‘Hey, we’re playing around with this new iPhone — isn’t this you?’ And I said, ‘What??’”

Apple itself has never officially confirmed Bennett as Siri, in keeping with its secrecy, but she embraced the role. Over time, newer versions of Siri introduced updated voices, but Bennett will always be remembered as the original voice of Siri.

Here’s the kicker: She was paid just a standard voice-over session fee, reportedly a few thousand dollars total. There were no residuals, royalties, or bonuses when Siri became a global phenomenon. As she later said in interviews, “I didn’t know what it was going to be used for. If I had, I probably would’ve asked for a lot more money.”

Doug O’Brien