September 19, 2025 • 12 mins
We're giving our thoughts on this week's big story: a company called Inception Point AI has been flooding the podcasting ecosystem with an astonishing 3,000 AI-generated episodes weekly!
But should podcasters panic? Probably not. Real podcasters offer something machines cannot: personal stories, authentic connections, and the beautiful imperfections that make content relatable and human.
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- Send us a text message
- Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods
Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jordan (00:00):
So one of the biggest stories this week has been the
company called Inception PointAI, who is producing about 3,000
podcast episodes per week usingentirely AI, and I think that
this is a story that I've seenswirling around everywhere.
Everyone has really strongopinions on it If you're not
familiar.
(00:20):
Basically they have 5,000podcasts.
They've made like 160,000episodes so far just using AI,
and 3,000 podcasts a week ispretty concerning for a lot of
people because they're usingSpreaker and publishing all
these episodes with programmaticads on them.
To me it reminds me of like aPixar film in which the villain
(00:42):
is like what we we're notbreaking any rules.
Kevin (00:44):
We're doing nothing wrong Like what is our anyway.
Jordan (00:47):
And then like behind them they're like turning a knob
that's going to like slowlyooze toxic goo into the internet
and like destroy the one truething we love.
Kevin (00:55):
Did you guys ever watch the Phineas and Ferb stuff?
Jordan (00:58):
No, what's this?
Kevin (01:00):
Oh, the bad guy from Phineas and Ferb was hilarious.
Every episode he would make youknow some sort of destruction
machine that would do somethingand he would always call's it
like theinator, and so this would be like the podcastinator.
Yes! That's exactly it. I was just reading this story and I was just like man, I've seen this film before, I know this one. This is Mitchells vs the Machines, this is Big Hero 6. There's like the corporate villainjust taking the one last cent
of like podcasting revenue andputting it in their pocket and
(01:29):
leaving behind a wake ofdestruction, and I think that
that is the way that a lot ofpodcasters are viewing this
story.
But I don't know, I think thatwe all kind of have a different
view of this.
Alban (01:40):
I mean, I've seen this story before and it was like
every website on Google threeyears ago.
Oh, gpt came out and people werelike, hey, there's all this
content marketing.
That's been around forever andit works really well for
businesses.
But you know, we could justlike scrape every page and then
write our own version and spinup 10,000 web pages a day and
(02:01):
claim all these Google rankings.
And they were right for like ayear and then it all imploded
once Google goes oh wait, thisexperience actually really
stinks because it all reads thesame, it's poorly written, it
doesn't really have a uniqueperspective, there's no
authority behind it, andeventually all the rankings kind
(02:24):
of went to the people whoreally were doing firsthand
knowledge what they're writingabout, that actually done
research, that put some effortin person behind it, and we've
seen that on our blog.
We didn't get hit as hard asothers might have, but there was
this huge wave and everyone incontent marketing was freaking
out and now I think, at least inmy opinion, it's swung all the
way back to if you're a realperson, proving you're a real
(02:46):
person, putting real personauthenticity behind it, you
actually do quite a bit better.
Kevin (02:52):
I think the platforms that are algorithmically driven
are definitely more susceptibleto stuff like this and
podcasting as a whole.
It really is not.
There is some percentage of thepodcast listening world out
there that probably discovers apodcast through a search of some
sort, whether that happens onGoogle or Apple Podcasts or
Spotify.
But on the whole the majorityof podcasts come through
(03:15):
recommendations or throughpicking up the podcast of like
somebody who you follow onsocial or something.
So there are other more likereal world screening processes
that kind of happen before youlaunch into listening to a
podcast.
Jordan (03:28):
Yeah.
Kevin (03:29):
So I think that speaks to why a company like this has to
do the volume that they'recranking out in order to get any
amount of traction at all liketo make it worthwhile.
You can't just be putting out ahundred podcast episodes a
week.
You have to be doing thousands,because all of these shows are
probably doing a very low volumeoverall and people like.
The churn I would imagine onthis type of content is
(03:52):
relatively high Like 100% youlisten to one episode.
Jordan (03:57):
Yeah.
Alban (03:57):
The example I think the CEO gave was a pollen podcast.
He's like we could do a wholepodcast about pollen and if only
50 people listen.
We're positive on the numbersand I'm like, yeah, but anybody
who's willing to listen to apollen podcast is going to
identify this sounds totallyfake and bogus.
In one or two episodes You'reabsolutely right.
Kevin (04:16):
If you listen to a pollen podcast like, you are nuanced,
right, you're niched down, andso I think it's possible that
you stumble upon one of thesepodcast episodes, because there
might not be a lot of people inyour life who are, I don't know,
you know, sharing.
Oh, here's the latest, greatestpollen podcast that I stumbled
upon.
But for somebody who's, like,affected with a pollen allergy
(04:37):
or something, they might besearching, right, they're going
to go to podcast search engines,they're going to search for
this stuff.
They're going to find possiblysome of this AI generated
content, but I just don't thinkit has any staying power.
Like they're probably going toscreen it.
They're going to listen to afew minutes, download an episode
or two and be like that's notexactly what I'm looking for.
I'm not looking for AI generatedcontent.
That's basically taking all theinformation that I could
(04:59):
already find just by doing aGoogle search or doing my own
chat, gpt search and findingthis information.
I want to find, you know,personal experiences.
I want to hear real lifestories of people who have
connected with a similaraffliction that I have and how
they're dealing with it, or thetreatments that they've gone
through and what worked and whatdidn't.
That only comes throughpersonal experience and story.
Now it's possible that some ofthat gets infused into these
stories, because the AI botswill go and find blog posts and
(05:22):
stuff, and so I do think youcould probably fool them for a
little while, but I just don'tthink it's going to have any
staying power long-term.
Jordan (05:28):
Yeah, I was looking at one of the podcasts ratings and
reviews and it was a.
It was a podcast about knittingand one of the reviews was one
star and they said at one pointin the episode they were giving
instructions on how to do acertain knit and the
instructions were incorrect andthey would actually turn into a
jumbled mess and they're like.
So I realized this wasn'tactually a good podcast for this
(05:51):
and I think that's the thingis.
There's just going to be thesered flags throughout each
episode where people go wait asecond.
That doesn't add up and, alongwith what you were saying about,
like the personal stories andstuff like that, I think that's
part of what independentpodcasters have as staying power
against AI.
Podcasts are not going to havesuper fans because they're not
going to make these connections,they're not going to have this
(06:18):
relationship building abilitythat real podcasters have.
Alban (06:22):
Yeah, have you ever gone on like YouTube and seen YouTube
shorts that are like 30 secondclips of TV shows or movies?
Jordan (06:29):
Yes.
Alban (06:30):
Yeah, and they reverse the image and then they have a
scroll across it so it doesn'tget picked up by the detection
algorithm and, like you see likea 30 second clip, even if it's
a movie that like I know and I'mlike, oh, what a good scene,
like I've watched all of thembefore but I've never been like
that creator has something.
Jordan (06:48):
Yeah.
Alban (06:49):
You know you never look down and subscribe to the
channel and gone.
I want to have an ongoingrelationship with this channel
that rips clips from movies andpost them, and the people that I
connect with there's a level ofauthenticity.
They're risking something, theyget stuff wrong sometimes and
it's human.
And the more human andauthentic it can be, the more I
(07:11):
want to connect to it.
The internet when we first goton, I think we all really wanted
authority.
You know, if you talk to peopleabout pollen, you may only know
one or two people who knewanything about pollen.
So you wanted some connectionto other people who dealt with
your allergy.
And then we wanted to find theauthority, like who really knows
who's doing pollen researchonline?
They used to be often some labin Connecticut or something and
(07:35):
now I can find them online.
So we could find authority.
But now I think we're kind ofshifting way back into
authenticity, where we go toReddit and we're like I just
want to talk to other people.
Even if it's kind of a jumbledforum, at least it's real
people.
It seems like it's real peopleand podcasts we are all everyone
(07:55):
who's listening to this andeveryone's doing a show.
You're all the way.
On the authenticity side, it'syour voice.
It's you making mistakes.
Kevin and I were talking aboutsomething right before this,
that 50-50 chance what I wastelling him was fake or not even
true.
We're making the mistakes and Idon't really want to listen to
a podcast that is machinecurated and isn't trying to
(08:16):
develop some type of humanrelationship.
It just feels totally fake and,I don't know, fabricated, just
kind of empty.
Jordan (08:23):
Yeah Well, and additionally, you know we were
talking about how this feelslike a children's villain origin
story sort of thing.
It's one of those things whereit's just so ridiculous that I
don't see them succeeding.
I don't see that there's aworld in which Spreaker is going
to be like yeah okay, you guyscan have all the programmatic
advertising dollars, for youknow, like any of the podcast
(08:46):
platforms are going to allowthis to continue.
I mean, even YouTube has beentaking actions against what they
consider to be like AI slop,and so I think it's only a
matter of time before this kindof stuff gets taken down as
well.
Alban (08:58):
Well, it's because it's preying on the assumption that a
podcast is made by a person,and it's a person who has real
experiences and has done someresearch and is trying to do a
good job.
Yeah, and so when you see apodcast and it's on your topic,
you go, oh, thank the Lord, likesomebody else is out there and
I'm out to connect and I'm outto learn.
(09:19):
And then they're like, oh, ifyou want to knit, like this.
And then you were like, wait asecond, this makes no sense.
And it's the same like voicethat's on every one of those
dumb Instagram real videos.
You go oh, it's another one.
Yep, all one-star reviews.
Okay, I got suckered in.
(09:39):
People aren't going to getsuckered in again the third and
fourth time because they'regoing to go.
When I look for a podcast, ifit's perfectly on the point that
I'm looking for, I'm going togo start checking those reviews
and go okay, a bunch of one-starthat say, yeah, this was AI
generated.
I think we're just going toadapt to it, in the same way we
had to adapt to spam email or abunch of junk on the internet.
Jordan (09:58):
Text messages yeah.
Kevin (10:00):
Yeah, I think I agree with both of you guys.
It's also maybe to try to wrapit up in an optimistic note.
I think the more low qualitycontent that enters into
whatever creative space thatyou're operating in and in this
case, podcasting the betteropportunity you have as a
creator to stand out, todifferentiate yourself and in
this case it might not be toohard because all you have to do
is just be you, be authentic, dothe best version of the show
(10:22):
that you can and, as we talkedabout in the like the super fans
episode, give your audience away to connect with you, to
share some level of the personbehind the podcast that you're
doing again with boundaries andwith safety in mind, and all
that kind of stuff.
But I do think the more likelow quality stuff that enters
into creative space, it givesthe real people who have heart
(10:42):
and passion and desire to createsomething good, it gives you
more of an opportunity to standout and elevate what you're
bringing to the space.
If podcasting doesn't have lowquality content, then the bar
becomes high, right, like you'realways competing against the
top podcasters.
Jordan (10:57):
Yeah.
Kevin (10:58):
And so in some way it's good to have like a large swath
of quality of content becauseyou get to differentiate
yourself in that space.
So hopefully somebody who'slooking for that pollen podcast
and they stumble upon yours andyou're new and you're still
learning the game, you knowwhat.
Maybe they latch on becausethey feel like this is a real
person and they don't have allthe answers their microphone
technique might be a little bitshoddy or they don't publish as
(11:20):
regularly as I'd like, but atleast they're real and I can
connect with them and I'm goingto subscribe to the show and I'm
listening to the story becausethere is some personal
connection there.
They're not going to find thatin the AI world.
So, as optimistically a spin onit as I can put.
That would be.
It would be it.
I think it's a reason to keeppodcasting.
I think it could beopportunistic for people who are
really excited about creatingcontent in this space.
Alban (11:39):
Five star review.
This was made by a real person.
Jordan (11:44):
All right.
So our next episode podcastingmyth busters.
I usually do a call to actionwhere we still need you to send
in responses for our nextepisode, but actually we have so
many great podcasting myths Ifyou want to send some in, you
still can.
But I got to be honest, guys.
We have a plethora of reallysolid podcasting myths to bust
(12:08):
and we might have to split thisepisode up into another episode
sometime in the future.
It's going to be a lot of fun,so I'm really looking forward to
the next episode.
Alban (12:17):
Awesome.
Well, I'm looking forward torecording it.
Jordan (12:19):
Yeah, so thank you all so much for listening and keep
podcasting.
So one of the biggest stories this week has been the
company called Inception PointAI, who is producing about 3,000
podcast episodes per week usingentirely AI, and I think that
this is a story that I've seenswirling around everywhere.
Everyone has really strongopinions on it If you're not
familiar.
(00:20):
Basically they have 5,000podcasts.
They've made like 160,000episodes so far just using AI,
and 3,000 podcasts a week ispretty concerning for a lot of
people because they're usingSpreaker and publishing all
these episodes with programmaticads on them.
To me it reminds me of like aPixar film in which the villain
(00:42):
is like what we we're notbreaking any rules.
Kevin (00:44):
We're doing nothing wrong Like what is our anyway.
Jordan (00:47):
And then like behind them they're like turning a knob
that's going to like slowlyooze toxic goo into the internet
and like destroy the one truething we love.
Kevin (00:55):
Did you guys ever watch the Phineas and Ferb stuff?
Jordan (00:58):
No, what's this?
Kevin (01:00):
Oh, the bad guy from Phineas and Ferb was hilarious.
Every episode he would make youknow some sort of destruction
machine that would do somethingand he would always call's it
like theinator, and so this would be like the podcastinator.
Yes! That's exactly it. I was just reading this story and I was just like man, I've seen this film before, I know this one. This is Mitchells vs the Machines, this is Big Hero 6. There's like the corporate villainjust taking the one last cent
of like podcasting revenue andputting it in their pocket and
(01:29):
leaving behind a wake ofdestruction, and I think that
that is the way that a lot ofpodcasters are viewing this
story.
But I don't know, I think thatwe all kind of have a different
view of this.
Alban (01:40):
I mean, I've seen this story before and it was like
every website on Google threeyears ago.
Oh, gpt came out and people werelike, hey, there's all this
content marketing.
That's been around forever andit works really well for
businesses.
But you know, we could justlike scrape every page and then
write our own version and spinup 10,000 web pages a day and
(02:01):
claim all these Google rankings.
And they were right for like ayear and then it all imploded
once Google goes oh wait, thisexperience actually really
stinks because it all reads thesame, it's poorly written, it
doesn't really have a uniqueperspective, there's no
authority behind it, andeventually all the rankings kind
(02:24):
of went to the people whoreally were doing firsthand
knowledge what they're writingabout, that actually done
research, that put some effortin person behind it, and we've
seen that on our blog.
We didn't get hit as hard asothers might have, but there was
this huge wave and everyone incontent marketing was freaking
out and now I think, at least inmy opinion, it's swung all the
way back to if you're a realperson, proving you're a real
(02:46):
person, putting real personauthenticity behind it, you
actually do quite a bit better.
Kevin (02:52):
I think the platforms that are algorithmically driven
are definitely more susceptibleto stuff like this and
podcasting as a whole.
It really is not.
There is some percentage of thepodcast listening world out
there that probably discovers apodcast through a search of some
sort, whether that happens onGoogle or Apple Podcasts or
Spotify.
But on the whole the majorityof podcasts come through
(03:15):
recommendations or throughpicking up the podcast of like
somebody who you follow onsocial or something.
So there are other more likereal world screening processes
that kind of happen before youlaunch into listening to a
podcast.
Jordan (03:28):
Yeah.
Kevin (03:29):
So I think that speaks to why a company like this has to
do the volume that they'recranking out in order to get any
amount of traction at all liketo make it worthwhile.
You can't just be putting out ahundred podcast episodes a
week.
You have to be doing thousands,because all of these shows are
probably doing a very low volumeoverall and people like.
The churn I would imagine onthis type of content is
(03:52):
relatively high Like 100% youlisten to one episode.
Jordan (03:57):
Yeah.
Alban (03:57):
The example I think the CEO gave was a pollen podcast.
He's like we could do a wholepodcast about pollen and if only
50 people listen.
We're positive on the numbersand I'm like, yeah, but anybody
who's willing to listen to apollen podcast is going to
identify this sounds totallyfake and bogus.
In one or two episodes You'reabsolutely right.
Kevin (04:16):
If you listen to a pollen podcast like, you are nuanced,
right, you're niched down, andso I think it's possible that
you stumble upon one of thesepodcast episodes, because there
might not be a lot of people inyour life who are, I don't know,
you know, sharing.
Oh, here's the latest, greatestpollen podcast that I stumbled
upon.
But for somebody who's, like,affected with a pollen allergy
(04:37):
or something, they might besearching, right, they're going
to go to podcast search engines,they're going to search for
this stuff.
They're going to find possiblysome of this AI generated
content, but I just don't thinkit has any staying power.
Like they're probably going toscreen it.
They're going to listen to afew minutes, download an episode
or two and be like that's notexactly what I'm looking for.
I'm not looking for AI generatedcontent.
That's basically taking all theinformation that I could
(04:59):
already find just by doing aGoogle search or doing my own
chat, gpt search and findingthis information.
I want to find, you know,personal experiences.
I want to hear real lifestories of people who have
connected with a similaraffliction that I have and how
they're dealing with it, or thetreatments that they've gone
through and what worked and whatdidn't.
That only comes throughpersonal experience and story.
Now it's possible that some ofthat gets infused into these
stories, because the AI botswill go and find blog posts and
(05:22):
stuff, and so I do think youcould probably fool them for a
little while, but I just don'tthink it's going to have any
staying power long-term.
Jordan (05:28):
Yeah, I was looking at one of the podcasts ratings and
reviews and it was a.
It was a podcast about knittingand one of the reviews was one
star and they said at one pointin the episode they were giving
instructions on how to do acertain knit and the
instructions were incorrect andthey would actually turn into a
jumbled mess and they're like.
So I realized this wasn'tactually a good podcast for this
(05:51):
and I think that's the thingis.
There's just going to be thesered flags throughout each
episode where people go wait asecond.
That doesn't add up and, alongwith what you were saying about,
like the personal stories andstuff like that, I think that's
part of what independentpodcasters have as staying power
against AI.
Podcasts are not going to havesuper fans because they're not
going to make these connections,they're not going to have this
(06:18):
relationship building abilitythat real podcasters have.
Alban (06:22):
Yeah, have you ever gone on like YouTube and seen YouTube
shorts that are like 30 secondclips of TV shows or movies?
Jordan (06:29):
Yes.
Alban (06:30):
Yeah, and they reverse the image and then they have a
scroll across it so it doesn'tget picked up by the detection
algorithm and, like you see likea 30 second clip, even if it's
a movie that like I know and I'mlike, oh, what a good scene,
like I've watched all of thembefore but I've never been like
that creator has something.
Jordan (06:48):
Yeah.
Alban (06:49):
You know you never look down and subscribe to the
channel and gone.
I want to have an ongoingrelationship with this channel
that rips clips from movies andpost them, and the people that I
connect with there's a level ofauthenticity.
They're risking something, theyget stuff wrong sometimes and
it's human.
And the more human andauthentic it can be, the more I
(07:11):
want to connect to it.
The internet when we first goton, I think we all really wanted
authority.
You know, if you talk to peopleabout pollen, you may only know
one or two people who knewanything about pollen.
So you wanted some connectionto other people who dealt with
your allergy.
And then we wanted to find theauthority, like who really knows
who's doing pollen researchonline?
They used to be often some labin Connecticut or something and
(07:35):
now I can find them online.
So we could find authority.
But now I think we're kind ofshifting way back into
authenticity, where we go toReddit and we're like I just
want to talk to other people.
Even if it's kind of a jumbledforum, at least it's real
people.
It seems like it's real peopleand podcasts we are all everyone
(07:55):
who's listening to this andeveryone's doing a show.
You're all the way.
On the authenticity side, it'syour voice.
It's you making mistakes.
Kevin and I were talking aboutsomething right before this,
that 50-50 chance what I wastelling him was fake or not even
true.
We're making the mistakes and Idon't really want to listen to
a podcast that is machinecurated and isn't trying to
(08:16):
develop some type of humanrelationship.
It just feels totally fake and,I don't know, fabricated, just
kind of empty.
Jordan (08:23):
Yeah Well, and additionally, you know we were
talking about how this feelslike a children's villain origin
story sort of thing.
It's one of those things whereit's just so ridiculous that I
don't see them succeeding.
I don't see that there's aworld in which Spreaker is going
to be like yeah okay, you guyscan have all the programmatic
advertising dollars, for youknow, like any of the podcast
(08:46):
platforms are going to allowthis to continue.
I mean, even YouTube has beentaking actions against what they
consider to be like AI slop,and so I think it's only a
matter of time before this kindof stuff gets taken down as
well.
Alban (08:58):
Well, it's because it's preying on the assumption that a
podcast is made by a person,and it's a person who has real
experiences and has done someresearch and is trying to do a
good job.
Yeah, and so when you see apodcast and it's on your topic,
you go, oh, thank the Lord, likesomebody else is out there and
I'm out to connect and I'm outto learn.
(09:19):
And then they're like, oh, ifyou want to knit, like this.
And then you were like, wait asecond, this makes no sense.
And it's the same like voicethat's on every one of those
dumb Instagram real videos.
You go oh, it's another one.
Yep, all one-star reviews.
Okay, I got suckered in.
(09:39):
People aren't going to getsuckered in again the third and
fourth time because they'regoing to go.
When I look for a podcast, ifit's perfectly on the point that
I'm looking for, I'm going togo start checking those reviews
and go okay, a bunch of one-starthat say, yeah, this was AI
generated.
I think we're just going toadapt to it, in the same way we
had to adapt to spam email or abunch of junk on the internet.
Jordan (09:58):
Text messages yeah.
Kevin (10:00):
Yeah, I think I agree with both of you guys.
It's also maybe to try to wrapit up in an optimistic note.
I think the more low qualitycontent that enters into
whatever creative space thatyou're operating in and in this
case, podcasting the betteropportunity you have as a
creator to stand out, todifferentiate yourself and in
this case it might not be toohard because all you have to do
is just be you, be authentic, dothe best version of the show
(10:22):
that you can and, as we talkedabout in the like the super fans
episode, give your audience away to connect with you, to
share some level of the personbehind the podcast that you're
doing again with boundaries andwith safety in mind, and all
that kind of stuff.
But I do think the more likelow quality stuff that enters
into creative space, it givesthe real people who have heart
(10:42):
and passion and desire to createsomething good, it gives you
more of an opportunity to standout and elevate what you're
bringing to the space.
If podcasting doesn't have lowquality content, then the bar
becomes high, right, like you'realways competing against the
top podcasters.
Jordan (10:57):
Yeah.
Kevin (10:58):
And so in some way it's good to have like a large swath
of quality of content becauseyou get to differentiate
yourself in that space.
So hopefully somebody who'slooking for that pollen podcast
and they stumble upon yours andyou're new and you're still
learning the game, you knowwhat.
Maybe they latch on becausethey feel like this is a real
person and they don't have allthe answers their microphone
technique might be a little bitshoddy or they don't publish as
(11:20):
regularly as I'd like, but atleast they're real and I can
connect with them and I'm goingto subscribe to the show and I'm
listening to the story becausethere is some personal
connection there.
They're not going to find thatin the AI world.
So, as optimistically a spin onit as I can put.
That would be.
It would be it.
I think it's a reason to keeppodcasting.
I think it could beopportunistic for people who are
really excited about creatingcontent in this space.
Alban (11:39):
Five star review.
This was made by a real person.
Jordan (11:44):
All right.
So our next episode podcastingmyth busters.
I usually do a call to actionwhere we still need you to send
in responses for our nextepisode, but actually we have so
many great podcasting myths Ifyou want to send some in, you
still can.
But I got to be honest, guys.
We have a plethora of reallysolid podcasting myths to bust
(12:08):
and we might have to split thisepisode up into another episode
sometime in the future.
It's going to be a lot of fun,so I'm really looking forward to
the next episode.
Alban (12:17):
Awesome.
Well, I'm looking forward torecording it.
Jordan (12:19):
Yeah, so thank you all so much for listening and keep
podcasting.
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