AustraliaMedia and entertainment2024 – ongoingARN Media
AI radio host Thy on the CADA station
ARN Media ran an AI host with a cloned staff voice on CADA for about six months before listeners learned she was not human
Problem
ARN Media wanted to test whether AI audio tools could produce a daily radio show on its CADA station in Sydney.
Approach
ARN used ElevenLabs text-to-speech and voice cloning to create Thy, host of the four-hour weekday show Workdays, which plays hip hop. The voice was cloned from an ARN finance employee who agreed to its use. Thy ran for about six months without any on-air label saying she was AI. Writer Stephanie Coombes raised the question in April 2025 and ARN then confirmed it. Critics said listeners were misled, and the Australian Association of Voice Actors called the move tokenistic and asked for clear AI labelling. ARN described the project as a trial and said it was not replacing people.
Results
Takeaway
The technology worked well enough to go unnoticed on air for months, and that was what drew the criticism. ARN did not disclose the AI host until it was asked.
Categories
- Industry
- Media and entertainment
- Business function
- Marketing and sales
- Innovation type
- Product and service innovation
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Vendor solution
- Evidence
- Vendor case study
Sources
Source summaries
ElevenLabs describes how ARN built Thy with its voice cloning and text-to-speech tools, from a consenting ARN employee's voice. It gives CADA's reach as around 160,000 digital listeners and calls the work an experiment.
Reports that Thy aired for about six months without being labelled as AI and that critics said listeners were misled. It quotes ARN calling the project a trial and quotes the voice actors' association asking for an apology and labelling. ARN did not answer questions on whether the employee was paid.
Full details are in the original sources.
