Because Ivona was acquired and the old software is no longer sold, obtaining the original old Ivona Eric legally is tricky but possible.
Old Eric reading: “Welcome to the future.”
– The word “future” has a slight upward glide; “welcome” is drawn out.
New Eric reading: “Welcome to the future.”
– Each word is equally spaced; flat melodic contour.
Verdict: Technical Perfection, Less Soul old ivona eric new
When Amazon absorbed Ivona, they eventually launched "Neural" versions of the voices. The New Eric is found in Amazon Polly (Neural engine) and other modern cloud TTS services.
Users describe the old Ivona Eric as:
Example sentence in old Eric:
“The old Eric had a way of making even a boring textbook sound like a conversation.” Because Ivona was acquired and the old software
In the classic version, the word “conversation” would rise slightly in pitch on the second syllable, mimicking human speech.
In January 2013, Amazon acquired Ivona Software. The immediate goal was to power Alexa’s voice. But soon, Amazon rebranded and integrated Ivona’s engine into Amazon Polly (launched November 2016).
Polly retained many Ivona voice names—including Eric—but with significant changes under the hood. Users describe the old Ivona Eric as:
A growing trend: using AI voice cloning (e.g., ElevenLabs, Play.ht) to recreate the old Eric sound with neural quality. However, cloning a commercial voice like Eric without permission violates Amazon’s copyright.
That said, some independent creators have trained models on public domain recordings of old Eric (legally dubious). The result is a sort of “old Eric flavor” with modern smoothness. But for commercial use, avoid this.
Some VPN services and travel apps legally license old Ivona voices. However, this is rare.