Create a replica of your own voice on iPhone using Personal Voice; Know how to create it in iOS 17

The iOS 17 Personal Voice feature allows your iPhone to speak in your cloned voice using machine learning. Know how to create and use it.

The cool iOS 17 feature called Personal Voice will enable your iPhone to clone and speak in your voice. (AP)

Apple has added a new and unique accessibility feature in iOS 17 that can be helpful to many. The feature is called Personal Voice and it is a machine learning-based feature that allows your iPhone the capability to speak in your own voice. Yes, that's right. Your iPhone can create a replica of your voice and then synthesize the same voice to give the impression it is speaking in your voice. If you are wondering about the use case of this feature, it is meant for those who either have a speech disability or a condition that stops them from speaking for a longer period of time. So, if you want to try it out, we will explain how to set it up and begin using it.

Personal Voice feature

According to Apple, this feature has been introduced keeping those users in mind who are “at risk of losing their ability to speak — such as those with a recent diagnosis of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or other conditions that can progressively impact speaking ability”.

But the feature can also be used by healthy individuals who are either curious to see how it works, or want to preserve a replica of their voice for the future. This feature integrates with Live Speech, another new feature being introduced by the company. Live Speech enables users to type what they want to say to have it be spoken out loud during phone and FaceTime calls as well as in-person conversations. Essentially, it is a text-to-speech app. But with Personal Voice, Apple has added another layer of personalization to it.

It should be noted that the process is slightly complicated and requires between 15 minutes to an hour to complete it.

How to set up Personal Voice

In iOS 17, you will first need to go to the Settings app, and find Accesibilities. There, under Speech, you will find Personal Voice. Tap on ‘Create Personal Voice'.

The iPhone will prompt you to go to a quiet place and to hold the phone about six inches from your face. Once you have the right environment, tap on start. The iPhone will now give you some random sentences to speak in your natural voice. In case you get tired of doing it, you can stop at any moment and then come back to it.

The processing part can take from a few hours to a few days. Once it is done, you will get a notification that it is ready. Simply head to Live Speech and select it. And then you can use it during phone calls or FaceTime.

Do note that the feature is still a bit raw and the voice sounds a bit robotic, but for large parts, you will definitely see quite a lot of similarities to your own voice.