Tech Explained: Radio and the challenge of artificial intelligence in Simple Terms

By Alessandro Gisotti

“The Radio is no longer just Radio.” Twenty years have passed since Fr. Federico Lombardi, then Director General of Vatican Radio, pronounced these words during a meeting with his colleagues at the pontifical broadcaster.

Podcasts were practically an elite experiment. Web radios still carried no real weight in the media ecosystem. Social networks existed in an embryonic form and were certainly not used to distribute news content, let alone in audio format.

And yet, Fr. Lombardi had already sensed that radio—the most flexible and resilient medium par excellence—was once again changing its skin. Twenty years later (a geological era considering the speed at which communication technology has evolved in this sliver of the century), we can certainly confirm the Jesuit’s prediction: “The Radio is no longer just Radio.”

However, even though today we habitually speak of “Radio and Audio” as inseparable—clear evidence of how deeply things have changed—the DNA of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention still seems to retain its distinctive traits.

The voice remains at the centre. The voice with its emotions: those aroused by a song or an interview, by a conversation with a listener, or by the speech of a public figure. The voice, with its ability to reach people more directly when something important needs to be communicated. Radio somehow remains the “brilliant friend” of all other media—old and new—that produce information. Perhaps also because in a radio programme (or a podcast) technology certainly plays a key role, but not the dominant one. The real work is done by the person and their voice. But will this still be true in the near future?

“Artificial Intelligence is a tool. Not a voice.” This is the theme chosen by UNESCO for World Radio Day 2026, and it precisely captures and underscores a concern that is becoming increasingly evident—and urgent. Will AI replace people’s voices in radio broadcasts?

Technically speaking, this is not only possible today—it is already happening widely across many stations. Programmes hosted by “AI presenters.” Audio dubbing produced with AI. Podcasts created with music and cloned voices, using tools in which human contribution is reduced to a minimum.

These applications raise many questions, starting with the issue of transparency: listeners should first and foremost know whether the voice speaking to them is human or AI-generated. And they should know whether the news content they are listening to was selected by an algorithm rather than by a journalist.

Significantly, Pope Leo XIV’s first Message for the World Day of Social Communications, published on 24 January, offers reflections that connect strongly with this debate.

“Safeguarding faces and voices,” the Pope writes, “ultimately means safeguarding ourselves. Embracing the opportunities offered by digital technology and artificial intelligence with courage, determination, and discernment does not mean turning a blind eye to critical issues, complexities, and risks.

He directly addresses a point that today even major public service media organizations—such as the European Broadcasting Union—consider unavoidable. “The power of simulation,” Pope Leo warns, “is such that AI can even deceive us by fabricating parallel realities, usurping our faces and voices. We are immersed in a world of multidimensionality where it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from fiction.”

Artificial Intelligence cannot replace the emotion that a human being transmits through their voice to those who listen. That is why this revolutionary new technology should be used—to quote UNESCO—as a tool. Nothing more.

Seen in this light, AI can be of great help to radio: to better understand audience tastes; to organize sound archives more effectively; to search for information much faster; to build a more defined and recognizable sonic identity. The potential developments are enormous, and some are still unpredictable.

But no technological advance—however sophisticated—will ever be able to replace the human dimension, the connection between people, which lies at the heart of Marconi’s invention.

AI can perfectly clone the timbre of a voice. It can therefore “replace” the vocal cords. But not the ones of the heart. Because, as Marshall McLuhan used to say, “Radio has the magical power to touch remote and forgotten cords.”