DDEX (Digital Data Exchange) and London-based Voice-Swap announced today that Voice-Swap has joined the standards body. The companies described the move as the first time a dedicated AI voice company has participated in DDEX standards development.
The announcement comes as questions remain over what is copyrightable in AI voice and how permissions should be tracked across production and distribution. Voice-Swap, led by Ausrine Skarnulyte, said it will focus on requirements including:
- voice-model identity
- consent and authorisation metadata
- usage-scoped permissions
- provenance and rights reporting
The companies said AI voice is expected to become “part of established production, distribution and commercial workflows.”
Expansion through 2026
Voice-Swap, which has a partnership with SoundCloud, has expanded its AI voice tools throughout 2026. Recent milestones include:
- April launch of Voiceover_Studio, a text-to-speech product aimed at creators and advertisers
- August arrival of instant voice cloning
- a growing roster of artists whose voices are available for licensing
In March, Voice-Swap became an initial participant in the World Intellectual Property Office’s Technical Exchange Network, alongside the non-Sony major music companies and others.
Authorization and interoperability
One month ago, Voice-Swap chief strategy and impact officer Michael Pelczynski published a blog post arguing that AI authorization, not just recognition, should become the norm.
“AI voice is becoming part of real production and commercial workflows, which means its underlying permissions need to become legible to the wider digital supply chain,” Pelczynski said. “The industry needs to know whose identity is represented, which model was used, who authorised that use and whether it remains within the permitted scope.
“We see DDEX as exactly the right environment to help make that information interoperable at scale,” the Rostrum Pacific digital strategy EVP concluded.
Mark Isherwood, DDEX secretariat, said Voice-Swap offers a new perspective. DDEX also unveiled a new standard in the Entity Cluster Message Suite the same day.
“Voice-Swap will clearly provide a particular focus on AI voice expertise,” Isherwood said. “This will assist DDEX in ensuring the standards it develops relating to the operational requirements around AI are as extensive as possible and meet the broadest possible requirements of the industry.”
