Artificial intelligence like Apple’s Siri has become so ubiquitous in many people’s lives that it’s no wonder the story of Persona 5 Strikers (today available on Playstation 4, Switch and PC) presents its own AI assistant in the form of EMMA. But what you may not notice right away is that EMMA is played by the woman who voiced the original Siri.
Susan Bennett is a professional voice actress best known for lending her talents to Apple’s Siri assistant from the beginning in 2011 until the iOS 7 update in 2013. Bennett’s voice was recorded in 2005 by a company called ScanSoft, a secret project she did not realize it was for Apple until Siri was released years later. Apple still won’t officially confirm that Bennett is Siri, but a CNN investigation in 2013 she concluded, with 100% certainty from the experts in forensic expertise, that she is the voice of the personal assistant.
Proceed to today and the launch of Persona 5 Strikers outside Japan. In the game, EMMA performs many of Siri’s functions in the real world. He finds nearby stores, traces travel routes, schedules and can even suggest things like what to take to a camping trip. The main teen characters quickly realize how useful it is and download it to all their phones. A sample of the EMMA voice can be found below (skip to 9:44 if the time stamp does not work).
In the spirit of avoiding spoilers for a game that was released today, I will just say that EMMA remains an integral part of the story from then on, but Bennett’s work is easy to miss if, like me, you are playing with Japanese voices. This connection was first brought to my attention by Twitter user resolutionroute, who described Bennett’s hiring by the localization team as “the biggest flex” in his original tweet, and Kotaku have since confirmed this is the case.
Since recording for Siri in the aughts, Bennett has provided his voice for a variety of projects, with clients ranging from Coca Cola and McDonald’s to Ford and Goodyear. Persona 5 Strikers it may be her first major show in the video game industry, but she totally hits the “soulless AI that can really have bad intentions” thing that I think the game is going with EMMA. I’m guessing her time as Siri prepared you for that.