Many thought the voice known as "Jessie" that appears on millions of TikTok videos was simply generated by AI — but now the identity of the woman behind one of the platform's most used text-to-speech options has been revealed.
The voice belongs to Kat Callaghan, a Canadian voiceover artist and radio DJ, who works with TikTok on a range of projects, including providing her voice for the audio on numerous TikToks.
Kat has finally confirmed that there is a human behind the mic — when being interviewed by social media creator Jack Gordon, he told her: "I think a lot of people don't realise you're real person". Kat replied: "There was so many people who thought it was made up in a machine somehow."
Text to speech is an option in TikTok, similar to Siri, where you can use a "voice" within the app to provide the audio for your video rather than use your own. And Kat is happy with this feature.
She explained: "There's people who don't have the comfort [of hearing] their own voice, but I always encourage people to. Or I'm happy to provide that voice if you think it's a good fit for your video."
Kat co-hosts The Scott & Kat Show on Canadian radio. Since starting her own voiceover business in 2015, she has achieved success in providing voice overs for adverts and other commercial platforms, including TikTok and YouTube.
In another interview with Distractify, the online publication and internet media company that focuses mainly on pop culture, she admitted she had initially been "hesitant" to reveal her work on TikTok as "some people were not a fan" of her voice. However, she now wishes she had announced her work earlier, as she said it has been a "really cool experience".
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
Going public has allowed her to create a thriving TikTok channel of her own, @voiceofkat, with 706,000 followers and 9.3m likes across her videos. On this channel, she answers questions about her work and shows what its like to work in radio.
She also has a Cameo account, where users can pay to send in certain sentences for her to read out, such as birthday messages.
Discover, learn, grow. We are Curiously. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
