the read aloud voice changed overnight. how do I get the old voice back?

This is the third time this has happened to the "Read Aloud" feature. I was using the fluent female voice for a 150,000-word book that I was editing. Suddenly it glitched out, and I get a dialog box that tells me I have to choose which voice. The only problem is, I was signed in, and David, Mark, and Zira are not as fluent as the "female voice." Like Sarah, I tried logging out and then back in. Didn't help. Then I read your reply and tried to log out and run Word; fingers crossed I'd get the "female voice" back. Nope, Copilot forces you to sign in, so that was also a dead end. Please correct the problem, and now that I know how to turn off updates, I will after it's fixed.

The read-aloud voice used to be a very smooth speaking female voice and overnight it changed to a robotic voice. When I go into the settings it says I have to be signed in to change the voice. I am signed in. I tried signing out and resigning in deleting the app and reinstalling but it still says the same thing. I am using an Android with the mobile app. I was originally using just the word doc connected to my OneDrive I've even tried the Microsoft 365 app still same results. How do I get the old voice back?

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING! March 8, 2025. I want the natural female voice back as my reader! Microsoft, fix this and don't let it happen again!

I experience this today as well. March 8, 2025.

A temporary work around is to save a word doc as a web page. Open the web page doc in Edge browser. Right click anywhere on the opened web doc page to bring up the read aloud option. Select read aloud then play as usual. There are a lot of the natural voices to pick from. when you click on the voice options to the right of the play controls at the top of your web doc. Ava multilingual natural is very similar to the Word female default.

Dear sarah,

Hello! Welcome to the Microsoft Community.

I understand that when you use the "Read Aloud" feature in Word, its voice suddenly becomes a robot voice. And you can't change it directly. I understand your feelings very well, and I will try my best to help you!

In fact, I checked this problem on my own device. The following conclusions were drawn:

1. I can use the "Read Aloud" feature normally in a separate Word application, and I can change the voice package used, with only male and female voice options. I'm not sure if the "female voice" here is what you need. This feature is still available when I am not logged in to any Microsoft account.
2. When I tried to use Microsoft Copilot 365 (formerly known as Microsoft Office 365), I really couldn't use Read Aloud, and I also received a similar notification that "You need to log in before you can choose the voice to use for Read Aloud". I can't change the voice package or use Read Aloud. To be precise, I clicked it and it seemed to be running, but no sound would occur.

This seems to be a problem in Microsoft Copilot 365. You can check whether you can use "Read Aloud" and change the voice normally in the Word application. Additionally, you can report this issue in Microsoft Copilot 365 by clicking on your avatar in the upper left corner, clicking "Send Feedback", and selecting "Report a Problem".

I have already sent the relevant feedback, and it would be great if you could also report this issue.

If you make any progress, feel free to let me know.

Best wishes

Pyke.D | Microsoft Community Support Specialist