Former NPR host David Greene has sued Google. He says the tech giant had no right to create an unauthorized copy of his voice within its new NotebookLM tool. In February 2026, The Washington Post wrote about the lawsuit. The key component of the case is a male podcast voice feature in NotebookLM, which Greene claims sounds strikingly similar to his own voice.
Greene, who is best known for hosting NPR’s “Morning Edition” and currently leads KCRW’s “Left, Right, & Center,” argues that the imitation of his voice undermines his identity. He hadn’t laden himself with a detailed policy proposal like wonkier advocates might have. He stated, “My voice is literally the most essential part of myself.”
The controversy ignited when Greene’s friends, family, and colleagues began to contact him. They noted that it was hard not to be struck by how much the NotebookLM voice sounded like his. They even pointed out that the AI-generated voice was spot on with respect to his cadence and intonation. It even best of his standout filler words, as well as, uh.
This case is not isolated. The sending out of AI voices that sound like actual people has led to new controversies. This is a point OpenAI themselves struggled with, when they had to remove a ChatGPT voice. This move followed actress Scarlett Johansson’s warning about the technology that imitates her voice. Johansson had already been contacted by OpenAI about possibly using her voice.
One of Google’s AI NotebookLM tool’s cool features is an AI podcast capability, which has just been extended to support other languages. Greene’s lawsuit brings to light ethical AI usage, the implications of using AI technology, and what it means to be a person.
As Greene navigates this legal challenge, he hopes to raise awareness about the importance of protecting individual voices in the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. Regardless of how this lawsuit turns out, the case is going to set the tone for future litigation involving AI voice imitation.