Royal Mail has been accused of using AI to recreate the voice of a dead BBC star for its 2025 Christmas advert.
The postal service has since admitted it used the technology for its campaign but insisted it had not sought to “replicate any specific individual”.
But Lucy Wynne, the daughter of Paul Vaughan, a BBC voice-over artist, has said the use of the technology was “outrageous”.
Before his death in 2014, her father narrated the Paddington books and was the voice of Horizon, the BBC science documentary series, as well as Radio 4’s Kaleidoscope.
In November, Mrs Wynne was sitting at home when the Royal Mail’s Christmas advert came on television and a voice she recognised as her father’s said: “It’s so much more than just a card.”
Her father had never worked for the postal service, leading her to believe somebody had “done something”.
Royal Mail has now admitted the hearty, warm tone of the narrator on its advert was produced using AI, but insisted it was not Vaughan’s voice.
A spokesman told The Telegraph: “As is increasingly common, the voice-over was AI-generated and we were advised that it was created using prompts and was not designed to replicate any specific individual.
“The production partners also carried out checks and advised that these did not identify any resemblance concerns.”
Deadline, an online news site, reported the festive “more than just a card” campaign was overseen by an advertising agency called Darwin & the Machine, which worked with Untold Studios to film the real UK actors who featured in the commercial.
However, the company is said to have subcontracted the voice-over to Fameplay, an AI creative studio based in Prague and backed by Czech Media Invest.
The company is chaired by Daniel Křetínský, whose EP Group owns Royal Mail.
A source told Deadline that Fameplay’s Juraj Felix, who is a close associate of Mr Křetínský, was “obsessed” with using an AI voice-over.
“The production team told him that it was not a great idea to use AI in connection with such a venerable British brand, but they saw a business opportunity,” they added.
Fameplay reportedly licensed its technology from ElevenLabs – the AI audio giant which boasts Matthew McConaughey, the American actor, among its investors.
Vaughan’s extensive work on the airwaves means his material could be ripe for AI training.
Mrs Wynne said Royal Mail had not apologised, adding: “It’s outrageous. He could have died two weeks ago, for all they knew. He could have been in the care home for the past 10 years, slowly losing his capacity for speech, and then all of a sudden, he’s on the bloody telly.
“They have not bothered to do their background searches to figure out who this voice is.”
An ElevenLabs spokesman said: “We have robust safeguards to ensure that people’s voices are not cloned without their consent.
“Having investigated fully, we can confirm the voice used in the advert was not a ‘voice clone’ of any real person. It was a synthetic voice generated by an ElevenLabs customer from a text prompt describing general vocal characteristics including gender, style, accent, and tone.”