Australian Radio Station Quietly Used AI Host for Months Before Listeners Caught On

For months, listeners had no idea that a popular host on an Australian radio station wasn’t human.

CADA, which broadcasts across western Sydney, had been quietly using an AI-generated presenter named "Thy," created with technology from Elevenlabs.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Thy has been hosting a four-hour hip-hop segment every weekday at 11 a.m. for the past six months.

The secret unraveled when Sydney-based writer Stephanie Coombes grew suspicious and started digging.

In a blog post earlier this month, Coombes pointed out the lack of basic details about Thy, asking, “What is Thy’s last name?... There is no biography, or further information about the woman who is supposedly presenting this show.”

Her investigation, including an audio analysis, picked up on repeated identical phrases like “old school,” which ultimately confirmed that the voice wasn’t human.

It was later disclosed that the AI voice had been modeled on a real employee from the Australian Radio Network’s finance department.

Responding to the revelation, a network spokesperson said they had been “trialling AI audio tools on CADA using Thy,” calling it part of a global trend and a source of "valuable insights".