We’ve said it time and time again, branding is so much more than logos, fonts, and colors. It’s your message, your values, and your voice—figuratively and literally.

We surveyed clients to understand the kinds of projects they anticipate needing a voice for in 2025. Brand marketing (52%), animation (45%), internet ads (35%) and television, including intros, outros, and ads (35%) were the categories most anticipated for needing a voice in 2025. Keeping these project categories in mind, it will come as no surprise to find that 58% of respondents said digital broadcast channels–such as online media, streaming services, social media–were the most impactful paid media channels for brands and agencies.

How does audio help with branding?

When asked about how voice contributes to brand identity,

• 61% said voice and audio set the tone for marketing materials, campaigns, and other media
• 36% said it contributes by personalizing the customer experience
• One-fifth (20%) said audio cues like sonic logos or jingles reinforce brand recognition

In a digital-first world, where media strives to connect, entertain, and inform without much face-to-face interaction, voice and audio serve as an effective channel to work in that human touch. Whether it’s to use voice and tone to add emotion to a character, or to add a little flair to an ad, it’s clear that audio plays a crucial role in humanizing digital content we interact with every day.

Reach New Markets by Speaking Their Language – Literally

With approximately 1.4 billion native and non-native speakers, English is the language most spoken worldwide. For brands and creators based in English speaking countries, it’s easy to stick to English as the only language to reach audiences. However, in an increasingly globalized world, business, connections, and media content span across continents. As brands try to reach diverse audiences, adapting content to resonate culturally becomes essential.

Speaking their language

On Voices’ platform, English still remains the most popular language for hiring voice talent, with 42% of respondents saying they hire for English voices exclusively. However, 58% said they have hired or plan to hire in languages outside of English. Following English, the most commonly hired languages are Spanish (40%), French (22%), and German (11%).

We asked clients to share which languages they thought business should prioritize expanding into in 2025. English took top priority, with 49% saying English content will continue to be a priority in 2025. Spanish took second place as a priority language (46%) and Chinese ranked third (28%). Respondents predict the Chinese-speaking market to become a key market in the future. Although Chinese did not rank in the top five languages hired for voice talent this past year, it ranked in the top three for anticipated priority languages, suggesting that marketers recognize the Chinese-speaking demographic as a growing market in the future.

Hey Alexa, say that in Spanish

Outside of traditional voice over, AI is transforming the way creators and businesses access multilingual content. Similar to text-to-speech, speech-to-speech–taking spoken language input and changing it to a different spoken language output while maintaining the same message–is a technology which has many beneficial use cases and is getting better with time.

Imagine speaking into your phone, recording your voice, and hearing your voice play your recording back to you in another language. Imagine how much easier it will be for people to overcome language barriers! Speech-to-speech technology is improving and its potential impact is significant. Dubbing TV shows and movies, translating audiobooks to have them available in different languages, or using translator apps while traveling–all of these become simpler and more accessible with this technology.

Looking ahead, clients are considering the importance of multilingual content, how technology will impact these efforts and its potential to make content and multilingual content creation more accessible.

Use Human Voices to Create Lasting Connections

In a world driven by AI, the human voice is sought out

As the use of AI in voice over and technology continue to evolve, opinions on its adoption remain split. Our client survey found that respondents are almost evenly divided on the topic:

• 34% say they are more open to AI voices this year compared to last
• 33% say they’re less open this year compared to last
• 33% remain unchanged in their stance.

This even distribution reflects a mixed landscape where excitement for AI’s capabilities are counterbalanced by concerns over quality, ethics, and a strong preference for the unique qualities human voices bring to projects. While the technology advances, the survey findings suggest that many in the industry are still determining if and how AI voices best fit their needs.

Despite interest in AI voices, the human voice reigns as the primary choice for most clients. Our survey found that though 26% of clients have experimented with an AI voice for a project this year, the majority of those clients (70%) used an AI voice in less than 25% of their projects. This indicates clients are taking a cautious approach, where we see voice buyers testing the waters of AI voice overs.

When selecting an AI voice, unsurprisingly, likeness to the human voice is the top priority: nearly 80% said the human-like quality of the voice was their top consideration when choosing an AI voice provider. Affordability and accessibility were also key factors when deciding on an AI voice provider: one-third (33%) of respondents said affordable pricing is key, and 18% said they value a quick turnaround. These findings suggest that AI voices are appreciated for their ability to speed up workflows by providing immediate, on-demand access.

Trust but verify: playing it safe in the AI game

Purchasing and using AI voices aren’t without risk. We’ve heard of countless stories of companies in hot water for using questionable data sources to train their AI models. The end buyers of products trained on this material may also face repercussions such as operational delays, reputational damage, or even legal trouble. While AI vendors and dataset providers shoulder most of the responsibility, buyers of AI voice, or any AI-based product, should do their due diligence to avoid any unwanted repercussions.

How do buyers of AI voice verify that the vendor or product is ethical?

• 30% said they rely on the company’s reputation or reviews
• Just under one-quarter (24%) say they research the company’s policies on AI ethics
• Surprisingly, over one-quarter (27%) said they don’t verify a company’s ethical AI stance, and just trust that the company follows ethical practices

While we are still early on in the era of generative AI, ethics and AI will remain an ongoing conversation no matter what. To safeguard your services, products, and reputation, we recommend looking into ethics and policies of the AI vendors and service providers you work with. Providers that sell products created from AI training data scraped from the web without user consent have found themselves under scrutiny. Partnering with companies that prioritize ethical data practices can help you avoid the risks associated with unlicensed or unethically sourced AI, protecting both your brand and your customers. To learn more about what to look for and what to avoid when looking for AI voice vendors, read our advice here.