Lost Sonia Read Aloud voice after most recent update

Sonia is one of the neural Read Aloud voices provided as an online service in Microsoft 365. After some updates, Word can fall back to the older built‑in Windows voices (Zira, David, Mark), which sound more robotic. When that happens, the neural voice list (including Sonia) may disappear until Word reconnects correctly to the service.

Use these steps to try to restore Sonia:

1. Confirm Read Aloud is available and signed in
   • Open Word.
   • Make sure sign‑in is completed with a Microsoft 365 account.
   • If Read Aloud is missing or greyed out, sign out of the account in Word, close Word, reopen it, and sign in again.
2. Check internet connection
   • Neural voices like Sonia require an active, stable internet connection.
   • Verify that other online features (e.g., opening a file from OneDrive) work normally.
3. Restart Word and Windows
   • Close all Office apps.
   • Restart Windows.
   • Open Word again and try Read Aloud; check the voice list to see if Sonia has returned.
4. If Read Aloud is still using only Zira/David/Mark
   • This indicates Word is using only the local Windows TTS voices.
   • Ensure that connected experiences are allowed in Office (so Word can use online services). If connected experiences are disabled, neural voices will not be available.
5. If the voice changed to a robotic one after an update and does not come back
   • This matches a known issue where an update caused Read Aloud to revert to the older Windows voices.
   • A common workaround from affected users is to reset the Read Aloud configuration via the registry so Word rebuilds its TTS settings:
     1. Close Word.
     2. Press Win + R, type regedit, and press Enter.
     3. Navigate to the key indicated in the recommended answer for the Read Aloud voice issue (the key that stores Read Aloud settings).
     4. Locate the value mentioned there and rename it (for example, add -1 to the end of its name).
     5. Close Registry Editor.
     6. Reopen Word and test Read Aloud again.
   • Renaming that value forces Word to recreate its Read Aloud configuration, which has restored the natural‑sounding voices for other users.

If Sonia still does not appear after these steps, the voice may have been temporarily removed or changed on the service side. In that case, continue using another available neural voice and submit feedback from within Word (Help → Feedback) so the issue is visible to the product team.

References:

• Listen to your Word documents
• Download languages and voices for Immersive Reader, Read Mode, and Read Aloud
• Natural-sounding Read Aloud voice in Microsoft Word changed by itself to robotic default voices - Microsoft Q&A