AARP Hearing Center
How Do I Change My Digital Assistant’s Voice?
Siri, Alexa and Google Gemini can take on new accents and personas
Rob Dobi
AARP members and readers are invited to submit pressing technology questions they’d like me to tackle in my Tech Guru column, including issues around devices, security, social media and how all the puzzle pieces fit together. This week, I’m addressing a question about changing the voices and personalities of the virtual assistants inside phones, smart speakers, TVs and tablets.
The emergence of generative AI promises to make these assistants more engaging and, yes, more intelligent, though in some cases it is taking longer than some of us would like.
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Amazon, for example, recently unleashed Alexa+ for compatible Echo smart speakers, Fire tablets and Fire TV devices, a virtual assistant that, in my experience, is smarter, more expressive and conversational, and frankly more fun than its predecessor. But it’s an “early access” release, meaning Amazon is still accepting feedback and testing Alexa+, and conceding that it “may not get everything right.” Indeed, on a bedroom Echo speaker in my house, Alexa+ is often slow to respond to my spoken commands.
How can I change the voices of the digital assistants I regularly interact with on my own phone, tablet and smart speaker?
Many people have made friends with Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, the Google Assistant or the AI assistant now replacing it, Google Gemini. These virtual assistants deliver the weather, tell jokes, set timers and alarms, serve up recipes, play music on demand, and in some cases control your smart home.
As I indicated above, as GenAI gains traction, this is essentially a transition period for such virtual assistants. In the meantime, though, if you’re looking for something fresh or just want to play around a bit, it’s easy to change the dialect or even the language of the virtual assistants living inside your devices.
Here’s how:
Changing Amazon Alexa
You have two main ways to alter Alexa’s voice.
For starters, you can simply say out loud, “Alexa, change your voice,” and Alexa will play another voice for you and ask whether you’d like to choose it or hear another. You can keep cycling through until you settle on one.
The second way is to change the voice inside the Amazon Alexa app via your phone. Launch the app and tap the More icon, represented by three horizontal lines of different sizes. Next, tap Settings | Device Settings and choose the Alexa-capable device whose voice you want to change, assuming you have more than one. Tap Settings for that given device (a gear icon) and scroll to Alexa’s Voice. Tap any of the available feminine and masculine voices listed here —you will see descriptions such as “upbeat,” “relaxed” and “grounded” — to hear a sample before making your selection. Drag the Speaking Rate slider at the top of the screen to adjust the voice’s speaking speed.
If you want to change Alexa’s language as well, tap Device Settings | Choose your device | Settings and scroll to Language. Some languages may not be supported in all countries, including the U.S., and certain Alexa features and content may also be unavailable.
A quick digression: Some readers may recall that Amazon used to let us purchase the voices of celebrities such as Samuel L. Jackson, Melissa McCarthy and Shaquille O’Neal as Alexa stand-ins, a practice it ended in 2023. After Amazon ceased offering these voices, folks who had already spent money on them were issued refunds.
Though no reason for Amazon’s decision was given at the time, The Verge reported that such celebrity voices couldn’t handle all of Alexa’s tasks or skills, such as helping with shopping lists and setting reminders.
Change Google Gemini on a Smartphone
Open the Gemini app on your phone and tap your profile picture (or initials) on the upper right. Scroll down to Settings | Gemini Voice. The voice currently selected on your device will pipe in: “I’m ready to be your voice. If you like what you hear, choose me to start talking.” That persona, named Vega on the Pixel I used for testing, is described as having a “bright, higher voice.” I could swipe or tap arrows to listen to samples of other available voices, including a “calm, mid-range” male voice called Nova, a British “higher voice” female known as Capella and an “energetic, deeper [male] voice” named Orbit.
Tap Select to choose your preferred option.
Change Google Assistant
Google recently started rolling out a Gemini for Home voice assistant for compatible smart speakers and displays, but as of this writing, the Google Assistant is still the prevalent voice on these devices. Gemini for Home has free and paid versions.
To change the Assistant voice, open the Google Home app on your phone, tap your profile picture, then select Home settings | Google Assistant | Assistant voice & sounds. A list of voices appears, identified by names that aren’t very descriptive, such as Red, Orange, Amber and Blue. Tap to hear what these voices sound like, and when you land on one you like, leave it at that.
Change Siri
Siri is the voice of the iPhone, iPad and other Apple devices. To change Siri's voice on the phone, tap Settings | Apple Intelligence & Siri (or just Siri, depending on the model) | Voice, and tap a variation among American, Australian, British, Indian, Irish or South African, followed by one of the corresponding voices for that language. Siri’s new voice will take effect when the phone finishes downloading a file for the voice you selected.
You can also change Siri’s language by tapping Settings | Apple Intelligence & Siri | Language. If you do, you’ll have to teach Siri to understand your own voice again before Apple’s assistant wakes up to a “Hey Siri” command.
Bonus tip: Wirelessly share files between Apple devices and Google Pixels
As part of Apple’s walled garden, Android users could not wirelessly transfer files to an Apple device using the latter’s AirDrop file-sharing system, which has been reserved for moving files across Apple’s own devices. Until now. Google announced that if you have one of its Pixel 10 series devices, you can use Google’s QuickShare system to make nice with AirDrop. According to The Verge, Google cracked AirDrop interoperability “without Apple’s involvement.”
If you have a compatible Pixel, open the content you want to share and tap Share | Quick Share. You can also find Quick Share in device settings.
On the Apple side, make sure AirDrop settings are placed in receiving mode as Everyone for 10 Minutes.
Google blogged that it is looking forward to expanding to other Android devices.
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