The Northeastern University in Boston, USA and the company VocaliD have launched a centre which will work on preserving and recreating people’s voices using artificial intelligence (AI). The centre hopes that the technology it develops will allow people to still sound like themselves even when they are no longer able to speak. Participants in the project are asked to record two to three hours of speech which are then used to build an AI-generated voice engine that sounds like them. The digital voice is installed on an application where users can type what they want to say and the app produces the sentences replicating the user’s voice. Researchers say that the technology is improving rapidly and work is being carried out on issues such as changing the intonation of the voice, giving users more choice when it comes to how phrases are expressed, or ageing an individual’s voice.