If you’ve recently boarded a ScotRail train and thought, “That station announcement sounds… off,” you’re not alone. Regular passengers across Scotland are picking up on a change in the airwaves—and no, it’s not just your AirPods glitching.
ScotRail has quietly rolled out a new voiceover system on select routes, and this time, the voice guiding your journey isn’t a friendly human recording—it’s a synthetic Scottish accent named Iona. She’s not real, but she’s got opinions flying faster than a train to Glasgow Central.
Previously, those cozy, familiar announcements were voiced by an actual Scottish voice artist. Now? They’re AI-generated, courtesy of a company called ReadSpeaker, which specializes in lifelike text-to-speech systems in over 50 languages. The goal: streamline operations and bring a bit of futuristic flair to your commute. But many passengers aren’t quite ready to swap authenticity for automation.
ScotRail says: “Give it time—it might grow on you.” And honestly, they might have a point. Change is hard. Especially when your morning routine suddenly sounds like a digitized impersonation of a local.
To make things more relatable, the company even gave Iona a face—a red-haired woman wrapped in a woolly orange scarf, standing in a misty glen, presumably waiting for a train that she herself might be announcing. The image, also AI-generated, adds a touch of personality to what could otherwise feel a little… uncanny.
While some find Iona’s voice too robotic or oddly inflected, others are warming up to her uniquely Scottish charm. One thing’s for sure: she’s sparking conversation, and perhaps that’s the point.
Whether you love her or loathe her, Iona’s here, and she might just be the start of a wave of AI voices taking over daily life—from train stations to customer service lines. The question is: do we let her grow on us, or are we all just waiting for the next stop on this AI journey?
