A four-hour radio show was hosted by AI and nobody blinked

AI MEDIA

A four-hour radio show was hosted by AI and nobody blinked

For months, listeners tuning into Sydney’s CADA radio station have been hearing an AI-generated DJ, and most didn’t realise.

The show Workdays with Thy plays a four-hour mix of hip hop, R&B, and pop, without mentioning that the host, Thy, isn’t actually real.

ARN Media, which owns CADA, confirmed that Thy’s voice and image were created using ElevenLabs' AI voice generator, based on a real employee from their finance team.

Neither the show nor CADA’s website makes it clear that Thy is AI.

Instead, the show’s description simply says the music is handpicked by experts.

It’s not the first time AI content has flown under the radar.

Microsoft only recently revealed that an AI model was behind a Surface ad it launched earlier this year.

Workdays with Thy first appeared on CADA’s website in November 2024 and now reaches more than 72,000 listeners, according to the Financial Review.

In brief:

• CADA’s AI DJ, Thy, was created with ElevenLabs and is based on a real employee.

• There’s no clear disclosure on the show or the station’s website.

• Other radio stations have also trialled AI hosts, with mixed results.

Curated playlists ... by code

The move has drawn criticism, with Teresa Lim from the Australian Association of Voice Actors calling out ARN Media for a lack of transparency, saying audiences deserve to know when a host isn’t real.

ARN’s CEO, Ciaran Davis, said the experience shows just how much trust people place in radio hosts.

Other stations in the US and Poland have also experimented with AI DJS, although not all of them stuck with it once backlash hit.

Honestly, if the beats are good, do we even care?