Google Sued by Former NPR Host Over NotebookLM AI Voice

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A former NPR radio host has sued Google and its parent company Alphabet, alleging the tech giant used his voice for its CarnetLM AI product.

David Greene, former host of NPR’s Morning Edition and current host of KCRW’s Left, Right & Center, filed the lawsuit in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County. “Google used Mr. Greene’s voice without authorization, and then used those stolen copies to develop, train, and refine its AI delivery product, NotebookLM,” the lawsuit claims.

NotebookLM is an AI-powered research assistant that generates insights from the data you enter into the system. Google last year introduced Audio and video previews for NotebookLM. In the first case, a person using the software can generate an AI podcast based on information in a file you upload. Greene says others began informing him after the feature was added in fall 2024 that one of the voices on those podcasts sounded a lot like his.

“These allegations are baseless,” a Google spokesperson told CNET. “The male voice sound in NotebookLM audio previews is based on a paid professional voice actor hired by Google.” Google has not identified the voice actor it says paid to work on NotebookLM.

According to the lawsuit, Greene said she hired an independent forensic software company specializing in voice recognition to compare her voice to the one in question on NotebookLM.

“The Company conducted an extensive analysis of the vocal similarity between Mr. Greene’s voice and that used in NotebookLM,” the lawsuit states. “Testing indicated a confidence rate of 53 to 60 percent (on a scale of -100 to 100 percent) that Mr. Greene’s voice was used to train the software driving NotebookLM.”

The voices of professional actors or celebrities have already been the subject of complaints, lawsuits and licensing agreements. In 2024, Scarlett Johansson raised concerns about an OpenAI voice that sounded like his. The company removed the similar sound. Last year, ElevenLabs struck a deal to voice license celebrities including Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine.