Journalists sue Google for allegedly using their voices in AI training

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By Blake Brittain

May 12 (Reuters) - Google GOOGL.O has been sued by a group of award-winning journalists, podcasters and audiobook narrators in Illinois federal court for allegedly misusing recordings of their voices to train the artificial intelligence models that power Google Assistant, Gemini Live and other systems that replicate human voices.

The plaintiffs, who include prominent Chicago journalist Carol Marin and Pulitzer Prize winners Yohance Lacour and Alison Flowers, said in the proposed class action filed Monday that the tech giant misused thousands of hours of human speech without the speakers' permission to train its voice AI systems.

The group accused Google of violating their publicity and biometric data privacy rights under Illinois law and requested an unspecified amount of monetary damages. Spokespeople for Google and attorneys for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

The plaintiffs alleged that Google scraped the internet for voice recordings and used them without permission to power its AI voices. The lawsuit said that their recordings match "the profile of training audio Google's documentation identifies as optimal — long-form, single-speaker, studio-quality, professionally produced."

The lawsuit is one of dozens brought by authors, news outlets and others against tech companies for allegedly using their work without permission to train AI systems.

Former NPR host David Greene separately sued Google in California in January for allegedly misusing his voice in AI training. A group of voice actors has also brought similar allegations against AI voiceover startup Lovo in an ongoing New York lawsuit.

The case is Marin v. Alphabet Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:26-cv-05436.

For the plaintiffs: Ross Kimbarovsky, Jon Loevy and Matthew Topic of Loevy & Loevy

For Google: attorney information not yet available

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