May 29, 2026 • 19 mins
In this quickcast, we’re talking about the rise of AI-generated “podcasts” from companies like Amazon and Spotify, and why the word is getting stretched pretty thin.
Amazon is turning product reviews into conversational audio. Spotify is experimenting with personalized AI audio experiences. And suddenly, a lot of things that feel more like chatbots, summaries, or audio briefings are being labeled as podcasts.
So should podcasters be worried? We don't think so.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alban (00:00):
Jordan, Kevin, I just got some breaking news from John.
He ran some numbers for me andI was gonna ask uh, do you want
to take some guesses about howmany people are doing video with
Buzzsprout right now?
Kevin (00:13):
I shouldn't guess.
I can't do it.
I can't lie because I becauseyou know I know the numbers.
I looked at them this morning.
Alban (00:20):
Because I made a I I also I need them for a pitch, and so
I put them in a pitch that Idid send to Kevin, so you
probably did see it.
All right, Jordan, do you wantto play this guessing game
against nobody?
Jordan (00:34):
I was gonna say I love this game where I'm just
completely uninformed and haveno basis from which to jump off
of, except for a couple weeksago when we said that there was
like a hundred and something.
So wait, is this podcastersthat are doing video or like
video podcasts, like episodes?
Alban (00:51):
So the first one will be uh how many people do you think
are on a video plan onBuzzProwl?
Kevin (00:57):
Oh, I don't know this number.
Alban (00:58):
So this is just to give you an idea of percentage-wise
how many of our customers arereally creating video content
right now.
Jordan (01:08):
I think people are getting really excited about it
and they're starting to makethat switch, and they're finding
that's a little bit easier thanI thought.
So I want to say I'm gonna bereserved and say like 200.
Kevin (01:21):
I think it's more because we were at 120-ish or something
within the first three days oflaunching, and that was over a
weekend.
So I'm gonna go, I'll go 500.
Jordan (01:30):
Whoa!
Alban (01:31):
We're up to 860.
Jordan (01:34):
Oh, I was way up.
Alban (01:35):
860 podcasters are on a video plan, and the only
incentive to upgrade to a videoplan is to get access to Apple
Podcasts video.
So first off, that's just areally big number.
I'm really surprised at howquickly uh that's getting
adopted and how many people areeager to get their podcast into
(01:56):
Apple Podcasts.
I imagine a lot of that isdriven that we had lots of
people who were doing videoalready, and now we gave them
access to Apple Podcast video.
It's not that we're getting abunch of new people to start
creating video.
All right, another number tensof thousands of episodes get
uploaded to BuzzBrow every week.
What percentage of the episodesthat were uploaded in the last
(02:20):
week were video episodes?
This is the one I can't guesson.
Jordan (02:24):
This is the one you can uh okay.
Kevin (02:27):
I'm gonna give her a hint though.
Jordan is more than you think.
Jordan (02:31):
Okay.
Uh well it's hard because likeI don't even think because I
don't even know like how manyepisodes were even like oh just
just give me a percent.
Kevin (02:40):
Anywhere between zero and a hundred percent.
Jordan (02:42):
I'm gonna say thirty-five percent.
unknown (02:47):
Okay.
Kevin (02:48):
Jordan, it's way, way, way less than you think.
Jordan (02:52):
Oh, wait, what is oh no?
Alban (02:54):
I mean, this is way more than I thought it would be, but
it's 2.8%.
So 2.8% of all episodesuploaded to Buzzsprout right now
are video.
unknown (03:03):
Okay.
Kevin (03:04):
Well you have to remember the scale of yeah, like the
number of episodes that getuploaded is just massive.
Thousands and thousands ofepisodes uploaded daily, and now
almost 3% of those accountingfor video, that's a lot of video
episodes going up.
Yeah, like hundreds a day.
And that's that was what wasshocking to me.
Jordan (03:25):
This is like when you ask someone to guess like the
percentage of like planets inthe Goldilocks zones in our
universe.
Like, I I don't know.
Alban (03:34):
And you're wildly influenced by like the the how
big the number you've just heardis.
So if you hear a big number,you just guess big number.
And if you hear small number,you guess small number.
Jordan (03:44):
That's exactly it.
I was watching like NeildeGrasse Tyson, like he had like
a globe, and he was talkingabout when people go to this go
to space and like the spaceshuttle when it's like orbiting
the earth, it's actually like ifyou hold a globe, it's like
like an eighth of an inch awayfrom the globe.
Like it's so small.
And I was just like, what?
Kevin (04:05):
That felt a lot like when my kids were super young and
they were trying to guess likehow much money does daddy make
every year.
And they'd be like, uh $17 ayear.
And you'd be like, no, no, waymore than that.
Way more than that.
And they'd be like $47 a year.
And you're like, nope, stillway too low.
The biggest number you canthink of.
And then they're like eightbillion dollars a year.
Alban (04:27):
You're like, somewhere in the middle of those two
numbers.
Somewhere in there.
Right.
Well, I think probably the bestway for me to think about it is
how long did it take us to getto where three percent of our
podcasts had transcripts?
And I think the number was likeover a year of you know, having
(04:48):
tons of support and tellingpeople about transcripts and the
value of transcripts to get tohigh transcript adoption took a
long time.
You know, probably now only 3%of people are probably using fan
mail with any regularity.
There's tons of features thatwe roll out that are end up
being relatively niche, andothers that get a lot of
(05:09):
adoption.
And video is being adoptedsuper fast.
And I think it's because peopleare excited to jump into video
on Apple Podcasts and soon to bevideo in lots of other
locations.
But yeah, I I saw that.
It just got me excited.
You know, you work really hardon something, and to see lots of
our customers using it is apositive.
(05:30):
And to see them using it andnot hear a bunch of feedback
that it's blowing up uh makes mefeel even more confident that
it's going well.
Jordan (05:38):
Yes, absolutely.
Here we go.
One of the things that I wantto talk about today is Wait, one
of the things, this is a quickcast.
Kevin (05:50):
It has to be the only thing, 10 minutes.
Jordan (05:52):
Oh my gosh, I'm sorry.
You're right.
Kevin (05:54):
One topic, 10 minutes.
Everyone knows the rules.
Jordan (05:56):
Everyone knows the rules.
Okay, thank you for remindingme of the rules.
Okay.
The one thing that I want totalk about today is how it's
it's not exactly AI podcasts,but it's sort of how these
companies, these largerplatforms, are using AI podcasts
and they're using thatlanguage, if that makes sense.
So this started like four weeksback.
(06:16):
I saw this crazy story fromKatie Netopoulos, that business
insider.
She tweeted because she cameacross in Amazon, like in the
actual shopping app, that shehad the option to create a mini
podcast going through andreviewing uh like uh diaper rash
cream.
(06:37):
And it's did you see this all?
Alban (06:41):
Well, not this story, but I've seen this feature that you
can just you can be looking atsomething on Amazon and say,
like, make me a podcast aboutthis product.
And you can ask questions andthe hosts, it's kind of like
notebook LM.
It's just like a fake podcast,but it's kind of like they're
(07:01):
looking at all the reviews andtrying to give you a feel for
what is this product like, butit just feels like unhinged when
it's like diaper rash cream,and you're like, no one would
ever make a podcast about this,no one's doing a call-in show
because you can like interruptthem and say, like, oh, I've got
a question, actually, follow-upon this, and they're like, Oh,
very important, you know.
So yeah, it's just it feelstotally off.
Jordan (07:23):
What's so funny is like at first I was like, oh no, like
this sounds terrible.
And then, you know, people werebeing people and they started
having it create these minipodcasts selling the most like
unhinged things.
Like I saw one for like fakedog poop, and they're asking
questions about the fake dogpoop, and they're like, Yeah,
like this is you know, thelength of it, like the the like
(07:45):
the plastic fake thing that yourkids use for a print.
Exactly.
Kevin (07:49):
All right, again, that not gonna be a shocker to any of
you, but I did not read thisarticle.
I really have no idea whatyou're talking about, right?
But I have some questions.
unknown (07:57):
Okay.
Kevin (07:58):
Is this uh something like uh like Amazon and Spotify are
creating these podcasts and thenputting them out there for
people to listen, or do youcreate it yourself so you can
kind of interact with it as it'sas the podcast is happening?
Can you like interrupt it andsay, I have a follow-up
question?
All right, Amazon.com.
Alban (08:16):
Famously started by Jeff Bezos with books.
And then they started doingreviews at some point, and then
they got tons of reviews.
And to go through all thosereviews was like really
cumbersome.
So then one of the first, and Ithink really good
implementations of AI withshopping was Amazon going
through all those reviews andkind of writing you a summary of
here's what people seem tothink about this product.
(08:37):
And then they said, What we'lldo is we'll actually create an
audio version of this, like apodcast, like quote unquote,
like a podcast.
And you can listen to, hey,here's what this product does.
But then they added the abilitythat you can just interrupt and
be like a call-in show and askquestions.
But you it ends up being thisweird, it's almost like QVC
(09:01):
channel podcast for any product.
And so it just becomes veryunhinged very quickly.
Okay.
Jordan (09:09):
But then I started seeing more things about AI
podcasts popping up in likeAmazon Alexa, and then Spotify
announced that they are alsodoing a thing where listeners
can generate podcasts based onlike what's already on the
platform.
And I said, Oh, I don't likethat.
In my mind, the way they werepitching it, it was no longer
(09:30):
like uh Notebook LM where it'sclearly there's just them
spewing out like daily briefingsand things like that.
Kevin (09:38):
All right.
So wait, let me let me wrap myhead around this scenario now.
Jordan (09:40):
Okay.
Kevin (09:41):
So this one is like, um, I like whatever, we'll just use
a very popular podcast.
I like the Joe Roganexperience, but I don't want to
spend three hours listening tothis episode.
Create a summary version of theJoe Rogan experience for me,
and then I can basically get thegist of it in 10 minutes by
listening to an AI generatedversion of it.
Is it something like that?
Jordan (10:02):
I think that you could potentially do that.
The example that they gave waslike, let's say you want a
personal podcast for an upcomingtrip, and you can ask them to
create a daily audio brief formy road trip through Italy, walk
me through my day using mycalendar and bookings, and then
recommend memorable dinner spot.
Alban (10:20):
Okay.
I've actually run into anotherthing similar to this.
Uh, YouTube Music has thisfeature where I turned it on at
some point, and in between itplaying songs, it would be like
a music, like a DJ popping in togive you a little anecdote.
But the anecdotes are like youknow, it's really sad.
(10:40):
I was listening to um somemusic, and then it popped in.
It was like, oh, this songcharted twice.
Once when you know thishappened, and another when the
artist committed suicide.
So it's really poignant whenyou hear the these lyrics about
being sad, which remind you oftheir death.
And I'm like, gosh, this islike dark, and this was dance
music.
Kevin (11:00):
And you're just bopping around and now you're sad.
Alban (11:02):
And then it hopped back into another one of their songs,
and I'm like, okay.
The second time it popped in,exact same story.
And I'm like, Oh no, dude, thisjust feels like gross.
You know, if a DJ did it inreal life, you'd kind of be
like, oh, it's a person tryingto talk through how they feel.
It just felt weird.
And I was like, I gotta getturned this off because there
(11:23):
was no, I never got like aninteresting story.
It was mostly like these reallymundane stories mixed in with
somebody who knew like twotrivia facts about you know each
artist and then just kepttelling them to you over and
over.
I could see how that could befun though.
Kevin (11:38):
Like I used to love you guys ever watch VH1 pop-up
videos where you're watching thevideo and then they'd pop all
these little like fun,interesting facts up on the
screen.
Jordan (11:46):
Oh, yeah.
But is that like behind themusic or something like that?
Kevin (11:49):
It's kind of like that, but it was you were just
literally watching the musicvideo that the artist created
and it's playing the song.
And the most likeuninterruptive way that they
could do it, they wouldn't popin with a voiceover because that
would disrupt the song you'relistening to, but it would just
like little little bubbles wouldpop up on the screen and tell
you like fun facts about likethis scene in the video.
They actually, you know, was anouttake that would blooper, but
(12:09):
they loved it, so they kept itin.
And the song was actually, youknow, written in 10 minutes when
the artist was in high schooland whatever.
Just fun facts about the song,but it gave you, I don't know,
more interesting insight.
Anyway, I I thought that wasinteresting.
That would be fun to bringsomething like that to
podcasting or whatever.
Alban (12:26):
All the AI creating audio content.
I think I'm we we all work inpodcasting, so I think we have
pretty strong taste around whatis an appropriate way to
implement it.
And I think the it sounds likethe YouTube one, at least my
experience of it, was prettypoor.
The Amazon, I'm a little bitmore open to because it's pretty
clear.
This is a one per this is likefor you.
(12:48):
Do you want to listen to thereviews of this product?
And if you want to interruptand you want to ask weird
questions about like fake dogpoop gag gifts, then like you
can.
And Amazon handles it prettywell.
Let's just burn some AI tokens.
But like fun.
I mean, why not?
It's kind of impressive thatAmazon handles it so gracefully.
(13:10):
Um, there's so many times wherethe AI stuff blows up, and the
Amazon one seems to be like, oh,yeah, that makes sense.
I saw somebody, I don't know,they were like, oh, maybe this
picture of a clown will triggerPTSID I have from seeing a clown
in my childhood, and they gavethis wildly unhinged story, and
the host like kind of handled itgracefully, like, oh, I
(13:30):
understand how that would reallybother you.
This may not be the rightproduct for you.
And I was like, that kind ofdid a pretty good job.
Jordan (13:38):
Yes, not bad.
Yeah, it's just it feels likethe Wild West a little bit with
like AI and all this likeintegration.
I'm I'm starting to feel alittle bit of like overwhelm
with how many different thingsare getting integrated.
Cause I think I saw somethingabout Spotify like also adding
the ability to create like AIgenerated music based on your
music tastes and so like createlike a new song.
(13:59):
And to me, that's just it'sjust it feels like a bit much.
And I will say, I'm normallynot like this, um, especially
with all the discussions thatwe've had, especially around
like the companies, like uh, Iactually can't remember what the
company's called, but the onethat is like generating hundreds
of episodes every inceptionpoint, yes.
So we already, we alreadytalked about that.
(14:20):
We we said our piece about it.
We don't love it.
And I'm also not too concernedabout it.
But then when it started likealso introducing these like AI
generated podcasts that likelisteners can just do on the fly
about like whatever topic theywant, and it it made it sound at
first like it was pulling fromother podcasts and stuff like
(14:41):
that.
It just gave me the ick and itmade me a little bit worried if
I'm being honest.
And then when I've looked intoit a little bit deeper, I
thought, oh, phew, this is justlike notebook LM.
They're not actually competingwith real podcasters, they're
just they're competing withother chat bots, and this is
probably one of those fadsthat's gonna like like Clubhouse
or whatever that's gonna likenot be used as much and it's
just gonna kind of fade into themist.
Alban (15:03):
Yeah, I'd really point people back to this old article.
I know you've read it, Kevin.
All podcaster shows, not allshows are podcasts from John
Gruber from 2019.
He wrote it during you know, uhLuminary launching, which was
gonna do a bunch, it wasbasically trying to be the
Netflix of podcasts, you know, abunch of really high-end shows.
They're all behind a paywall.
It didn't end up working out umlike you know, many ideas
(15:26):
don't.
But he his whole point was apodcast is distributed audio
through RSS feed on the openweb.
And it's worth like trying tokeep that uh definition in
place.
We can have shows, and we'vethe further and further we've
(15:47):
gone, we say, okay, videocontent distributed through HLS
is now a podcast.
And we're getting so far thatyou hear stuff, and it's like,
oh, but you can listen to apodcast about the reviews of
like stuff on Amazon.
You can listen to a podcastthat's a summary of a review.
It's like it's just people areusing it to mean, I don't know,
listening to things.
Jordan (16:08):
Yeah.
Alban (16:10):
I think it's valuable to try to keep like the definition
a little bit tighter so that itstill has some meaning.
Kevin (16:16):
Yeah.
I I mean, I think that's avalid argument to be made.
Surprisingly, I will be theI'll take the optimistic
approach to this news and I willsay that I'm sort of excited
that these companies find itvaluable enough to figure out we
have a bunch of written contentthat people seem interested in,
but we know a lot of peoplelike listening to stuff.
(16:38):
And there's a lot ofenvironments where uh demanding
the person's full attention tobe able to read something,
whether it be review summarieson Amazon or answers to
questions um that you're typinginto uh an AI chatbot or
something like that, uh, yourfull attention isn't always
available.
It's not always the bestexperience.
And so they are investing a lotof time and resources in and
(16:59):
saying we can make those audioexperiences as well.
Uh I do think that that stuffwill start to compete with
podcasts because anytime youhave available to listen to
something, um right now you havelike music that you can listen
to, you have audiobooks, andlike the traditional definition
of a podcast.
Those are the things that arekind of like readily available
(17:19):
for you to listen to.
And now if these experiencesstart getting better, there'll
be another thing in thecategory.
So it will compete a littlebit, but I don't necessarily
know that it's um I don't Idon't know that it's like a big
threat.
I just think it's again mypositive take is that I like
audio experiences.
(17:40):
There are times when I go on along car ride and I'm like, I'm
in the mood for a book, and Iknow that's different than a
podcast, but um, for whateverreason, I just want to hear a
book right now.
And so I'll cue up the Audibleapp and I'll find a book that I
want to listen to or resume abook I've been listening to.
There's of course I have someof my favorite podcasts, and so
if they've dropped a newepisode, I want to listen to
that.
There's times when I just wantto listen to music, and there's
(18:00):
times when I now, a new thing inmy life is that it's a short
drive, but I've got something onmy mind that I might want to
have a conversation with mylittle chat GPT friend.
So I pop her open and we startchatting about a topic, maybe
something work-related orsomething, or a question that my
kid asked.
I didn't know the answer to.
But I love that these audioexperiences are getting richer
and stuff.
And and I think it's additiveoverall, but at the same time,
(18:22):
you have to recognize that,well, that 10-minute drive that
you were just talking to that AIbot could have been 10 minutes
you were listening to a podcast.
So it is gonna like raise thebar in terms of people are gonna
have more choices.
And if you want them to chooseyour content over something
else, then we have to producebetter content as podcasters.
But I think again, beingoptimistic and the the rising
(18:42):
tide lifts all boats, like themore people get into, I enjoy uh
private time, I enjoy walkingthe dog, I enjoy uh exercising,
I enjoy going for long cardrives now because I enjoy audio
experiences.
I think overall it helpspodcasters.
Jorda (18:57):
I think that's well put.
All right.
So if you want to hear us covera topic or um a current event
or a question that you have inthe future, go ahead and tap the
Set Us Fam Mail link in theshow notes.
And until next time, thanks forlistening and keep podcasting.
Jordan, Kevin, I just got some breaking news from John.
He ran some numbers for me andI was gonna ask uh, do you want
to take some guesses about howmany people are doing video with
Buzzsprout right now?
Kevin (00:13):
I shouldn't guess.
I can't do it.
I can't lie because I becauseyou know I know the numbers.
I looked at them this morning.
Alban (00:20):
Because I made a I I also I need them for a pitch, and so
I put them in a pitch that Idid send to Kevin, so you
probably did see it.
All right, Jordan, do you wantto play this guessing game
against nobody?
Jordan (00:34):
I was gonna say I love this game where I'm just
completely uninformed and haveno basis from which to jump off
of, except for a couple weeksago when we said that there was
like a hundred and something.
So wait, is this podcastersthat are doing video or like
video podcasts, like episodes?
Alban (00:51):
So the first one will be uh how many people do you think
are on a video plan onBuzzProwl?
Kevin (00:57):
Oh, I don't know this number.
Alban (00:58):
So this is just to give you an idea of percentage-wise
how many of our customers arereally creating video content
right now.
Jordan (01:08):
I think people are getting really excited about it
and they're starting to makethat switch, and they're finding
that's a little bit easier thanI thought.
So I want to say I'm gonna bereserved and say like 200.
Kevin (01:21):
I think it's more because we were at 120-ish or something
within the first three days oflaunching, and that was over a
weekend.
So I'm gonna go, I'll go 500.
Jordan (01:30):
Whoa!
Alban (01:31):
We're up to 860.
Jordan (01:34):
Oh, I was way up.
Alban (01:35):
860 podcasters are on a video plan, and the only
incentive to upgrade to a videoplan is to get access to Apple
Podcasts video.
So first off, that's just areally big number.
I'm really surprised at howquickly uh that's getting
adopted and how many people areeager to get their podcast into
(01:56):
Apple Podcasts.
I imagine a lot of that isdriven that we had lots of
people who were doing videoalready, and now we gave them
access to Apple Podcast video.
It's not that we're getting abunch of new people to start
creating video.
All right, another number tensof thousands of episodes get
uploaded to BuzzBrow every week.
What percentage of the episodesthat were uploaded in the last
(02:20):
week were video episodes?
This is the one I can't guesson.
Jordan (02:24):
This is the one you can uh okay.
Kevin (02:27):
I'm gonna give her a hint though.
Jordan is more than you think.
Jordan (02:31):
Okay.
Uh well it's hard because likeI don't even think because I
don't even know like how manyepisodes were even like oh just
just give me a percent.
Kevin (02:40):
Anywhere between zero and a hundred percent.
Jordan (02:42):
I'm gonna say thirty-five percent.
unknown (02:47):
Okay.
Kevin (02:48):
Jordan, it's way, way, way less than you think.
Jordan (02:52):
Oh, wait, what is oh no?
Alban (02:54):
I mean, this is way more than I thought it would be, but
it's 2.8%.
So 2.8% of all episodesuploaded to Buzzsprout right now
are video.
unknown (03:03):
Okay.
Kevin (03:04):
Well you have to remember the scale of yeah, like the
number of episodes that getuploaded is just massive.
Thousands and thousands ofepisodes uploaded daily, and now
almost 3% of those accountingfor video, that's a lot of video
episodes going up.
Yeah, like hundreds a day.
And that's that was what wasshocking to me.
Jordan (03:25):
This is like when you ask someone to guess like the
percentage of like planets inthe Goldilocks zones in our
universe.
Like, I I don't know.
Alban (03:34):
And you're wildly influenced by like the the how
big the number you've just heardis.
So if you hear a big number,you just guess big number.
And if you hear small number,you guess small number.
Jordan (03:44):
That's exactly it.
I was watching like NeildeGrasse Tyson, like he had like
a globe, and he was talkingabout when people go to this go
to space and like the spaceshuttle when it's like orbiting
the earth, it's actually like ifyou hold a globe, it's like
like an eighth of an inch awayfrom the globe.
Like it's so small.
And I was just like, what?
Kevin (04:05):
That felt a lot like when my kids were super young and
they were trying to guess likehow much money does daddy make
every year.
And they'd be like, uh $17 ayear.
And you'd be like, no, no, waymore than that.
Way more than that.
And they'd be like $47 a year.
And you're like, nope, stillway too low.
The biggest number you canthink of.
And then they're like eightbillion dollars a year.
Alban (04:27):
You're like, somewhere in the middle of those two
numbers.
Somewhere in there.
Right.
Well, I think probably the bestway for me to think about it is
how long did it take us to getto where three percent of our
podcasts had transcripts?
And I think the number was likeover a year of you know, having
(04:48):
tons of support and tellingpeople about transcripts and the
value of transcripts to get tohigh transcript adoption took a
long time.
You know, probably now only 3%of people are probably using fan
mail with any regularity.
There's tons of features thatwe roll out that are end up
being relatively niche, andothers that get a lot of
(05:09):
adoption.
And video is being adoptedsuper fast.
And I think it's because peopleare excited to jump into video
on Apple Podcasts and soon to bevideo in lots of other
locations.
But yeah, I I saw that.
It just got me excited.
You know, you work really hardon something, and to see lots of
our customers using it is apositive.
(05:30):
And to see them using it andnot hear a bunch of feedback
that it's blowing up uh makes mefeel even more confident that
it's going well.
Jordan (05:38):
Yes, absolutely.
Here we go.
One of the things that I wantto talk about today is Wait, one
of the things, this is a quickcast.
Kevin (05:50):
It has to be the only thing, 10 minutes.
Jordan (05:52):
Oh my gosh, I'm sorry.
You're right.
Kevin (05:54):
One topic, 10 minutes.
Everyone knows the rules.
Jordan (05:56):
Everyone knows the rules.
Okay, thank you for remindingme of the rules.
Okay.
The one thing that I want totalk about today is how it's
it's not exactly AI podcasts,but it's sort of how these
companies, these largerplatforms, are using AI podcasts
and they're using thatlanguage, if that makes sense.
So this started like four weeksback.
(06:16):
I saw this crazy story fromKatie Netopoulos, that business
insider.
She tweeted because she cameacross in Amazon, like in the
actual shopping app, that shehad the option to create a mini
podcast going through andreviewing uh like uh diaper rash
cream.
(06:37):
And it's did you see this all?
Alban (06:41):
Well, not this story, but I've seen this feature that you
can just you can be looking atsomething on Amazon and say,
like, make me a podcast aboutthis product.
And you can ask questions andthe hosts, it's kind of like
notebook LM.
It's just like a fake podcast,but it's kind of like they're
(07:01):
looking at all the reviews andtrying to give you a feel for
what is this product like, butit just feels like unhinged when
it's like diaper rash cream,and you're like, no one would
ever make a podcast about this,no one's doing a call-in show
because you can like interruptthem and say, like, oh, I've got
a question, actually, follow-upon this, and they're like, Oh,
very important, you know.
So yeah, it's just it feelstotally off.
Jordan (07:23):
What's so funny is like at first I was like, oh no, like
this sounds terrible.
And then, you know, people werebeing people and they started
having it create these minipodcasts selling the most like
unhinged things.
Like I saw one for like fakedog poop, and they're asking
questions about the fake dogpoop, and they're like, Yeah,
like this is you know, thelength of it, like the the like
(07:45):
the plastic fake thing that yourkids use for a print.
Exactly.
Kevin (07:49):
All right, again, that not gonna be a shocker to any of
you, but I did not read thisarticle.
I really have no idea whatyou're talking about, right?
But I have some questions.
unknown (07:57):
Okay.
Kevin (07:58):
Is this uh something like uh like Amazon and Spotify are
creating these podcasts and thenputting them out there for
people to listen, or do youcreate it yourself so you can
kind of interact with it as it'sas the podcast is happening?
Can you like interrupt it andsay, I have a follow-up
question?
All right, Amazon.com.
Alban (08:16):
Famously started by Jeff Bezos with books.
And then they started doingreviews at some point, and then
they got tons of reviews.
And to go through all thosereviews was like really
cumbersome.
So then one of the first, and Ithink really good
implementations of AI withshopping was Amazon going
through all those reviews andkind of writing you a summary of
here's what people seem tothink about this product.
(08:37):
And then they said, What we'lldo is we'll actually create an
audio version of this, like apodcast, like quote unquote,
like a podcast.
And you can listen to, hey,here's what this product does.
But then they added the abilitythat you can just interrupt and
be like a call-in show and askquestions.
But you it ends up being thisweird, it's almost like QVC
(09:01):
channel podcast for any product.
And so it just becomes veryunhinged very quickly.
Okay.
Jordan (09:09):
But then I started seeing more things about AI
podcasts popping up in likeAmazon Alexa, and then Spotify
announced that they are alsodoing a thing where listeners
can generate podcasts based onlike what's already on the
platform.
And I said, Oh, I don't likethat.
In my mind, the way they werepitching it, it was no longer
(09:30):
like uh Notebook LM where it'sclearly there's just them
spewing out like daily briefingsand things like that.
Kevin (09:38):
All right.
So wait, let me let me wrap myhead around this scenario now.
Jordan (09:40):
Okay.
Kevin (09:41):
So this one is like, um, I like whatever, we'll just use
a very popular podcast.
I like the Joe Roganexperience, but I don't want to
spend three hours listening tothis episode.
Create a summary version of theJoe Rogan experience for me,
and then I can basically get thegist of it in 10 minutes by
listening to an AI generatedversion of it.
Is it something like that?
Jordan (10:02):
I think that you could potentially do that.
The example that they gave waslike, let's say you want a
personal podcast for an upcomingtrip, and you can ask them to
create a daily audio brief formy road trip through Italy, walk
me through my day using mycalendar and bookings, and then
recommend memorable dinner spot.
Alban (10:20):
Okay.
I've actually run into anotherthing similar to this.
Uh, YouTube Music has thisfeature where I turned it on at
some point, and in between itplaying songs, it would be like
a music, like a DJ popping in togive you a little anecdote.
But the anecdotes are like youknow, it's really sad.
(10:40):
I was listening to um somemusic, and then it popped in.
It was like, oh, this songcharted twice.
Once when you know thishappened, and another when the
artist committed suicide.
So it's really poignant whenyou hear the these lyrics about
being sad, which remind you oftheir death.
And I'm like, gosh, this islike dark, and this was dance
music.
Kevin (11:00):
And you're just bopping around and now you're sad.
Alban (11:02):
And then it hopped back into another one of their songs,
and I'm like, okay.
The second time it popped in,exact same story.
And I'm like, Oh no, dude, thisjust feels like gross.
You know, if a DJ did it inreal life, you'd kind of be
like, oh, it's a person tryingto talk through how they feel.
It just felt weird.
And I was like, I gotta getturned this off because there
(11:23):
was no, I never got like aninteresting story.
It was mostly like these reallymundane stories mixed in with
somebody who knew like twotrivia facts about you know each
artist and then just kepttelling them to you over and
over.
I could see how that could befun though.
Kevin (11:38):
Like I used to love you guys ever watch VH1 pop-up
videos where you're watching thevideo and then they'd pop all
these little like fun,interesting facts up on the
screen.
Jordan (11:46):
Oh, yeah.
But is that like behind themusic or something like that?
Kevin (11:49):
It's kind of like that, but it was you were just
literally watching the musicvideo that the artist created
and it's playing the song.
And the most likeuninterruptive way that they
could do it, they wouldn't popin with a voiceover because that
would disrupt the song you'relistening to, but it would just
like little little bubbles wouldpop up on the screen and tell
you like fun facts about likethis scene in the video.
They actually, you know, was anouttake that would blooper, but
(12:09):
they loved it, so they kept itin.
And the song was actually, youknow, written in 10 minutes when
the artist was in high schooland whatever.
Just fun facts about the song,but it gave you, I don't know,
more interesting insight.
Anyway, I I thought that wasinteresting.
That would be fun to bringsomething like that to
podcasting or whatever.
Alban (12:26):
All the AI creating audio content.
I think I'm we we all work inpodcasting, so I think we have
pretty strong taste around whatis an appropriate way to
implement it.
And I think the it sounds likethe YouTube one, at least my
experience of it, was prettypoor.
The Amazon, I'm a little bitmore open to because it's pretty
clear.
This is a one per this is likefor you.
(12:48):
Do you want to listen to thereviews of this product?
And if you want to interruptand you want to ask weird
questions about like fake dogpoop gag gifts, then like you
can.
And Amazon handles it prettywell.
Let's just burn some AI tokens.
But like fun.
I mean, why not?
It's kind of impressive thatAmazon handles it so gracefully.
(13:10):
Um, there's so many times wherethe AI stuff blows up, and the
Amazon one seems to be like, oh,yeah, that makes sense.
I saw somebody, I don't know,they were like, oh, maybe this
picture of a clown will triggerPTSID I have from seeing a clown
in my childhood, and they gavethis wildly unhinged story, and
the host like kind of handled itgracefully, like, oh, I
(13:30):
understand how that would reallybother you.
This may not be the rightproduct for you.
And I was like, that kind ofdid a pretty good job.
Jordan (13:38):
Yes, not bad.
Yeah, it's just it feels likethe Wild West a little bit with
like AI and all this likeintegration.
I'm I'm starting to feel alittle bit of like overwhelm
with how many different thingsare getting integrated.
Cause I think I saw somethingabout Spotify like also adding
the ability to create like AIgenerated music based on your
music tastes and so like createlike a new song.
(13:59):
And to me, that's just it'sjust it feels like a bit much.
And I will say, I'm normallynot like this, um, especially
with all the discussions thatwe've had, especially around
like the companies, like uh, Iactually can't remember what the
company's called, but the onethat is like generating hundreds
of episodes every inceptionpoint, yes.
So we already, we alreadytalked about that.
(14:20):
We we said our piece about it.
We don't love it.
And I'm also not too concernedabout it.
But then when it started likealso introducing these like AI
generated podcasts that likelisteners can just do on the fly
about like whatever topic theywant, and it it made it sound at
first like it was pulling fromother podcasts and stuff like
(14:41):
that.
It just gave me the ick and itmade me a little bit worried if
I'm being honest.
And then when I've looked intoit a little bit deeper, I
thought, oh, phew, this is justlike notebook LM.
They're not actually competingwith real podcasters, they're
just they're competing withother chat bots, and this is
probably one of those fadsthat's gonna like like Clubhouse
or whatever that's gonna likenot be used as much and it's
just gonna kind of fade into themist.
Alban (15:03):
Yeah, I'd really point people back to this old article.
I know you've read it, Kevin.
All podcaster shows, not allshows are podcasts from John
Gruber from 2019.
He wrote it during you know, uhLuminary launching, which was
gonna do a bunch, it wasbasically trying to be the
Netflix of podcasts, you know, abunch of really high-end shows.
They're all behind a paywall.
It didn't end up working out umlike you know, many ideas
(15:26):
don't.
But he his whole point was apodcast is distributed audio
through RSS feed on the openweb.
And it's worth like trying tokeep that uh definition in
place.
We can have shows, and we'vethe further and further we've
(15:47):
gone, we say, okay, videocontent distributed through HLS
is now a podcast.
And we're getting so far thatyou hear stuff, and it's like,
oh, but you can listen to apodcast about the reviews of
like stuff on Amazon.
You can listen to a podcastthat's a summary of a review.
It's like it's just people areusing it to mean, I don't know,
listening to things.
Jordan (16:08):
Yeah.
Alban (16:10):
I think it's valuable to try to keep like the definition
a little bit tighter so that itstill has some meaning.
Kevin (16:16):
Yeah.
I I mean, I think that's avalid argument to be made.
Surprisingly, I will be theI'll take the optimistic
approach to this news and I willsay that I'm sort of excited
that these companies find itvaluable enough to figure out we
have a bunch of written contentthat people seem interested in,
but we know a lot of peoplelike listening to stuff.
(16:38):
And there's a lot ofenvironments where uh demanding
the person's full attention tobe able to read something,
whether it be review summarieson Amazon or answers to
questions um that you're typinginto uh an AI chatbot or
something like that, uh, yourfull attention isn't always
available.
It's not always the bestexperience.
And so they are investing a lotof time and resources in and
(16:59):
saying we can make those audioexperiences as well.
Uh I do think that that stuffwill start to compete with
podcasts because anytime youhave available to listen to
something, um right now you havelike music that you can listen
to, you have audiobooks, andlike the traditional definition
of a podcast.
Those are the things that arekind of like readily available
(17:19):
for you to listen to.
And now if these experiencesstart getting better, there'll
be another thing in thecategory.
So it will compete a littlebit, but I don't necessarily
know that it's um I don't Idon't know that it's like a big
threat.
I just think it's again mypositive take is that I like
audio experiences.
(17:40):
There are times when I go on along car ride and I'm like, I'm
in the mood for a book, and Iknow that's different than a
podcast, but um, for whateverreason, I just want to hear a
book right now.
And so I'll cue up the Audibleapp and I'll find a book that I
want to listen to or resume abook I've been listening to.
There's of course I have someof my favorite podcasts, and so
if they've dropped a newepisode, I want to listen to
that.
There's times when I just wantto listen to music, and there's
(18:00):
times when I now, a new thing inmy life is that it's a short
drive, but I've got something onmy mind that I might want to
have a conversation with mylittle chat GPT friend.
So I pop her open and we startchatting about a topic, maybe
something work-related orsomething, or a question that my
kid asked.
I didn't know the answer to.
But I love that these audioexperiences are getting richer
and stuff.
And and I think it's additiveoverall, but at the same time,
(18:22):
you have to recognize that,well, that 10-minute drive that
you were just talking to that AIbot could have been 10 minutes
you were listening to a podcast.
So it is gonna like raise thebar in terms of people are gonna
have more choices.
And if you want them to chooseyour content over something
else, then we have to producebetter content as podcasters.
But I think again, beingoptimistic and the the rising
(18:42):
tide lifts all boats, like themore people get into, I enjoy uh
private time, I enjoy walkingthe dog, I enjoy uh exercising,
I enjoy going for long cardrives now because I enjoy audio
experiences.
I think overall it helpspodcasters.
Jorda (18:57):
I think that's well put.
All right.
So if you want to hear us covera topic or um a current event
or a question that you have inthe future, go ahead and tap the
Set Us Fam Mail link in theshow notes.
And until next time, thanks forlistening and keep podcasting.
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