Adobe Podcast – Simplifying Audio Editing – with Mark Webster #620

In this episode of “The New Media Show,” hosts Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee welcome Mark Webster, the Head of Adobe Podcast. Mark expresses his excitement about being on the show and describes Adobe Podcast’s growth and features, mentioning that he joined Adobe in 2018 after his company, SaySpring, was acquired. The discussion transitions into … Continue reading Adobe Podcast – Simplifying Audio Editing – with Mark Webster #620 →

The post Adobe Podcast – Simplifying Audio Editing – with Mark Webster #620 appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Todd and Rob in the afternoon.
Hey. Afternoon
to love.
With Todd and Rob.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. And here we are with the
new media show with,
Todd in, The Philippines.
And we're on a new streaming setup this

(00:20):
time using OBS.
So I'm looking at the interwebs and everything
looks
good. Rob, welcome to the show.
Yeah. It's great to be back with the
show, Todd.
We've got an exciting episode. We're gonna talk
about
some Adobe podcast tonight. So
I'm looking forward to to learning everything about,

(00:41):
the Adobe podcast platform, and we've got a
terrific guest here, Mark Webster, who's the head
of Adobe podcast.
And so, Mark, welcome to the New Media
Show. It's great to have you with us.
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to
share everything we've been up to. And as
I told you guys earlier, I'm an open
book, so ask away.

(01:01):
Awesome.
Well, Todd, go ahead. Yeah. So I'm looking
at the
stream, and I'm not hearing I'm not getting
your guys' audio. So let me turn on
another audio source. I don't know what happened
here.
Let me go and unhide.
Oh,
lovely. There's always something

(01:23):
that,
that happens here, and I don't know why.
So let me
do this
unhide all.
Alright. Now let's try
alright. Go ahead and talk, Rob.
Yeah.
Well, Mark,

(01:44):
I know that the Adobe
podcast platform,
has been around for, what, a couple years
now. Right? Why don't you tell us a
little bit about kind of how how the
whole thing kinda came about at Adobe, and
what your
connection was at the very beginning of this
and
and kind of then we can dive into
the details.

(02:05):
Yeah. Absolutely.
So I joined Adobe in 2018
when a company I had founded called SaySpring
was acquired by Adobe.
And SaySpring
was a voice design and prototyping platform.
So if you're building stuff for voice assistants,
which a lot of people were at the
time,
you needed new design tooling in order to

(02:26):
do that. There was a lot of synergies
with, Adobe.
So we had the opportunity to join.
I've used Adobe and Macromedia tools my entire
career, so I was absolutely thrilled to join
the company.
And one of the goals of the acquisition
was to come up with a broader voice
strategy for for Adobe. And so
kind of the way our team took that

(02:47):
is we step back and looked at in
a world where
there was so much smart audio hardware, right,
where everybody
was wearing AirPods now,
Already, podcast consumption was, you know, sort of
growing,
rapidly.
We looked at sort of what does it
take to create good voice content, right, good

(03:07):
spoken audio content.
And as as we saw in the beginning
of this, it's hard. It's hard to get
everything set up correctly,
especially if you're new to it. Right? There's
a lot of challenges with it. At the
same time, we had an opportunity to meet
a lot of the amazing researchers that we
have in Adobe Research
and see what amazing audio technology

(03:28):
they had been incubating and working on themselves.
So kinda
I guess it was around 2020, early '20
'20.
We pitched to Scott Belsky, who was, chief
product officer at the time,
let our team kinda roll out and focus
on what is an AI first audio
strategy,
that we could put together that was, you

(03:49):
know, based around
spoken audio and and sort of the mission
that we always say is,
helping people share something as fast as it
is to create it. Right? So just say
something and and and sort of cut down
on the editing process, cut down on a
lot of the work that's involved.
And so,

(04:09):
we also, because we had been acquired, we
were still a small team of engineers, designers,
and a product person.
So
Adobe and Scott sort of helped us
set up as an independent team and basically
get started,
and build what has become Adobe Podcast.
It's funny. At first,

(04:30):
podcast
wasn't thinking about recording,
and then the first week that we all
worked on it together was March 2020, which
was the beginning of the shutdown.
And all of a sudden, remote recording became
a big requirement.
So we sort of built out this platform,
started rolling out pieces of it. We were

(04:50):
in a private beta. And to get some
more people into the private beta,
we decided, hey. Let's take two of the
core
AI services that that, are part of the
platform, which is Mic Check,
which is, sort of an online assistant that
that helps you set up your mic correctly
and make sure the reverb in the room
is is good for recording.

(05:11):
And then Enhanced Speech, which makes spoken audio
sound like it was recorded in the studio.
And we created these sort of single serve
pages.
And just the idea was, oh, people can
get a little excited by this, join the
beta, kinda see everything that we're building,
and Enhanced Speech just took off.
It was I I my I've been building
stuff for twenty five years. I've never seen

(05:34):
something just virally grow as fast as enhanced
speech did. It took over TikTok. It took
over YouTube really quickly while we were a
team of five people.
Quickly had million users using it, and that
just sort of started the journey. Kind of
then got us, you know, to to to
get some, more people to join the team,
to build it out, and sort of, you

(05:54):
know, start what has become the Adobe podcast
journey. But, yeah, it was sort of humble
beginnings of incubating something small that just took
off because of sort of the genius of
Adobe researchers
coming up with enhanced speech.
That's kind of
a that's amazing transition
from
from one thing to a product now that

(06:16):
podcasters are using
to record their episodes and do everything that
Adobe Podcasts or Adobe Podcasts Premium
is more of a package,
than offers. Yeah. It was always
it was always intended to be an end
to end platform and product that helped anyone,
you know, sort of record, edit, share,

(06:37):
spoken audio content podcasts,
and then enhanced speech just sort of became
our
wedge to help everybody know what we were
up to.
And so, you know, Enhanced Speech is still
its own tool,
is now is embedded in in,
Adobe Podcast Studio, which is the end to
end experience.
And so yeah. So now, you know, we

(06:58):
have people who
do group recording there, do sort of the
end to end text based editing.
You know, the promise of of podcasts,
the platform
is that you don't need to be an
audio expert, that it's easy and accessible to
use.
You know, we don't even have sort of
a multitrack editor. It's all text based editing.

(07:21):
So just
way more lightweight than sort of, you know,
some of what the other workflows that we
see, people using out there. So it's also
been a fun experience to just
learn more about,
how how people are creating these things,
finding ways to kind of
bring
that functionality of people who aren't creating these

(07:42):
things yet and are relatively
new to it.
But also the unique opportunity to do it
in a place like Adobe,
where, you know, we have Audition, we have
Premiere.
So, we don't have to go sort of
pro and high end. So, for the, you
know, life of podcast, we'll be able to
sort of focus on a certain sort of
simplicity
that,

(08:02):
you know so the product lifestyle always ends
up making
you
drive your product to be a little bit
more complex because that's how you go after
bigger customers
and, you know, listen to pro users. And
so I think, the benefit of sort of
being in a place like Adobe is you
have a bunch of that already. So we
can just
remain sort of focused on simplicity. And and,

(08:22):
again, a way, like, in my career,
I haven't had the opportunity to do. So
it's a it's a fun challenge of not
only
what do we build to bring to our
users, but also, like, what don't we have
to build? Like, what can we, you know,
drive to a different place in Adobe when
that's what you're looking for and that's what
you need? You know, one thing Is this
a oh, go go ahead. You know, you
know, I have had been an Adobe edition

(08:43):
user for
I I mean, like, probably since I started
podcasting in 02/2004.
So whatever version
it was
then, I I can't remember using anything else.
I may have used a free product for
a few episodes, but I was like, I
need it in on and I to be
honest with you, I don't use 95%

(09:05):
of the things in
audition that is available. You know, I use
a few of the tools.
So for me, it's like I I it's
completely overkill.
It's an overkill product for me.
And then, you know, when I see Adobe
podcast, I I kinda giggle a little bit
because

(09:25):
it really gives me
everything
that,
all I use Adobe editions. So, you know,
so, you know, you're cutting,
you know, the leveling that's available, you know,
just a few things.
And I'm thinking myself, I'm, you know, I'm
paying for an Adobe of course, I use
Premiere too, so I need Premiere. You know,

(09:45):
so I'm like, wow. Maybe maybe I could
lower my bill a little bit. But for
a new podcaster,
this is one of the reasons why, you
know, Blueberry did it. The, you know, the
relationship and and
opened up this ability for Blueberry podcasters to
get, you know, a sixty day, free trial
is

(10:05):
we wanted podcasters to understand that
they
they don't need a high end product like
addition or
Inenberg
or some of these other products are out
there to get started.
You get started, get your feet wet,
and then maybe you graduate into
addition.

(10:27):
And I think too,
a lot of times,
new content creators
are very very intimidated by
the editing process and maybe they don't have
a budget for an editor.
So the text based editing
to me was like, it's no more complicated
than really,

(10:48):
you know, editing a a doc file. You
know, you just you kind of scrub what
you want. You delete it.
It's Transcript. Yeah. It's easy. You're really editing
a transcript is what you Yeah. It's very
very very easy to utilize.
And,
you know, I'm hoping
from
this you know, what you guys are doing,
obviously, you're gonna be improving your product over

(11:09):
time.
But I I love the simplicity
at this point.
And
I'm I guess, you know, from my standpoint
is,
you know, the you guys are obviously using
some some AI, I'm assuming,
in the tool or am I wrong?
Yeah. No. There's there's several different pieces of

(11:30):
of AI that sort of power things. Right?
I mean, obviously, like, the transcription that also
powers it is AI.
But then we also do some
smart things just under the hood, right, that
aren't necessarily
AI, but,
to just help make edits sound more natural.
And actually, when you cut out a word,
actually finding the right place,

(11:50):
to to sort of make it as seamless
as it can be when you use text
based editor.
You know, again, enhanced speech is,
a core part of the recording and editing
experience. Right. It was funny. We we did
a,
we looked into
how many people are exporting something out of
Adobe Podcast without turning on enhanced speech.

(12:15):
And it's like 3%.
Wow. Like everybody who uses that tool uses
enhanced speech to make it sound great. And
so, you know, because we were like, oh,
this is an opportunity to share this feature.
Users might not know about it. And it's
not on by default.
But that's, you know, I think that the
ability to just sound professional, right? And have

(12:35):
your content sound professional grade,
I think it's a really hard problem
to solve both technically and
from a user experience perspective.
But again, like that's, that's the thing that
our team just kind of
is obsessed with and focused on is how
do we continue to just keep that simple,

(12:57):
and make it so, you know, anyone can
use it. You know, if you go
to Twitter,
and, and look at, you know, or a
social media platform and look at, you know,
Adobe podcast,
you're gonna see lots of teachers posting stuff
of kids, K to 12,
who are using it, who are creating podcasts
for the first time.
You know, so it sorta has that level
of ease,

(13:19):
but can create sort of professional and great
stuff. So, yeah, it's been been a super
fun
product to work on.
One thing that I was
also,
you know, I we we talked to a
number of folks and,
I I think the thing that really
set me apart and why we wanted to,

(13:40):
you know, to align was that
you you guys are you guys are a
monster. You know, you're a big company
and this is what you this is what
Adobe does.
Now this is the lifeblood of the company,
you know, audio, video,
graphics,
all the things, you know, all the tools
that everyone's familiar with.
So Creative tools. Yeah. All the creative tools

(14:02):
and the creative suites.
So for me, it just made sense because
I'm thinking,
you know, you you've had this,
this powerhouse name
that is
they already know core audio. This is, you
know,
I don't know how many total years,
Adobe has done audio,

(14:23):
but it's,
a process audio or, you know, going all
the way back to addition and all the
other video editing tools. But
I just knew that
over
time that
you're you're probably your internal road map just
as the product is just gonna get better.
So for me,
the
the understanding is is I can I can

(14:45):
be guaranteed this product is gonna be around
tomorrow? It's going to continue to
improve over time.
And, obviously, there's some,
integration now with some of the other products.
So I'm pretty I'm pretty jazzed
with the product overall.

(15:05):
I don't know. Rob, you wanna jump in
here? I'm hogging up the mic.
Yeah. I think it's really, really interesting for
a company like Adobe to be moving into
this direction of a of, like, a single
use kind of tool. Right? I mean, it's
an entry level kind of use case, but
on the other hand,
it may be a way for you guys

(15:26):
to develop,
AI capability that is appealing, right, in a
single use case that then
can be attractive that maybe will
help a consumer transition over to using, like,
a full product? Or or is the company
do you think, Mark, looking at this from,
you know, these type of products like you've
created within

(15:48):
the Adobe podcast area that
that that is kinda more more of a
glimpse of the future, right, as you think
about AI and AI agents and things like
that. Because I can see where those three
tools that you've built in in Adobe podcast
so far,
are very much kind of aligned with each
other from a functional standpoint. So so I'm

(16:09):
just kind of curious on your thoughts on
that as you look to
to the future of AI agents and how
that plays a role in what you're doing
here.
Yeah. Absolutely. So I I think there's sort
of two pieces to it. Right? So
you were first sort of talking about, you
know, as as people are getting used
to new tooling, and are are new to

(16:30):
different workflows.
I mean, you see the same thing at
other parts of the Adobe business too. Right?
So we have Adobe Express,
which is our graphics and video platform
that sits alongside
our pro level tools.
Sort of the same idea. Either
you you don't need the powerhouse of Photoshop
to make certain graphics and expresses exactly what

(16:52):
you need.
You're new to graphic design overall,
and, you know, that's the right tool for
you. You're an EDU,
that's the right tool for you. And so
I think
in order to, you know, our our our
vision of creativity for all, I think that
part of that is making
easier to use tools for those kinds of

(17:12):
users. Right? And so I think podcast is
that for audio.
But I think you're seeing that across the
company. Right? I also think that you're seeing
sort of across the digital landscape, just the
power of design and design becoming,
a more and more important part of
all kinds of work and content creation, right?

(17:33):
Of marketing,
of sort of what we have traditionally called,
you know, knowledge work.
I think design is a more and more
important part of all of that. And so
again, that sort of brings a whole different
type of user to it.
When it comes to AI, you know, I
think there's
I mean, one of the benefits of of
AI, at least the way we've approached it
in,

(17:54):
podcast is we very intentionally sort of looked
at
what is
sort of end to end workflow of creating
audio content.
What are all the things that either
take time
or take a high level of skill in
order to complete?
And then how can we use AI just
to start chipping away at all those workflows?

(18:16):
Right? So,
or or or or just build it in
a way that AI is not as important,
but still chips away at that part. Right?
So I would say the first is is
mic check,
making sure you're starting with a good recording,
super important part of it. When you record
in,
podcast,
we're also recording locally on your machine

(18:37):
Mhmm. And then sort of feeding that recording
up into the system. So the audio that
you have isn't the conversation the two people
had with each other in real time. Right?
It's the local recording, so it's much higher
quality. Most of our users have no idea
that that happened. Uh-huh. But it just ends
with
really good sounding audio. Right?
Then you have

(18:58):
AI to transcribe it and give you a
transcript to edit with. You have AI and
enhanced speech to be able to
make it sound good. Right? And
all the next things that are gonna come
from Adobe Podcast are, you know, how do
we
cut down on the editing process? How do
we do, you know, automated filler word removal?
How do we help you find the best

(19:18):
clips to share on social? Right? Like, throw
captions on those things. Like, all of the
things that you then need
to share that work with other people. Right?
I think AI has a place to fit
in all of those things. And one of
the things that I find sort of exciting
and rewarding about
what the way we focused on it
is none of this is is sort of

(19:39):
like replacing creativity. Right? It's like accelerating
creativity.
You know? I think that, you know, when
we look at some of the other things
that are out there, people keep asking me,
like, are podcasts going away? Like, can't we
just do, like, text to speech?
I was just I mean, like, can't you
just have a robot write a book? Can't
you just have a robot create an image?
Like, I think that they will always you
know, there'll be

(19:59):
a a subset of work that I think,
you know,
AI might fill in,
but I don't think creativity could be replaced,
human creativity.
And so I think when you can use
AI to accelerate
that process,
I think that becomes super exciting. Right? And
it gets more people to be able to
share more stories with more people out there
in more ways, which, you know, to me

(20:21):
is kinda the whole point. On the on
the enhancement of the audio process,
obviously,
you all have perfected
on the software side.
I mean, there is a you go into
effects and addition and you can really
manipulate the audio in a big, big way.
So
on the enhancement of the audio, did did

(20:43):
use the knowledge of okay. We need to
know to set this, this, and this. You
know, you had specific
I guess a better question is, was there
set of logarithms that was gained from knowledge
on
on the core software product or was this
a brand new effort
on the enhancement of the audio? Or did

(21:03):
you you know, did you know that and
we need to touch this piece, this, this,
and this.
And
we kinda know the logarithms already.
That's generally good or
and so I guess the maybe the question
is is you had to sample the audio
first to know what change.
That had to be relatively

(21:24):
complex, I would think.
Am I wrong on that? Or what was
that process? So
yeah. So it is a completely
different approach
to enhancing audio.
And again, this was, you know, developed within
Adobe Research. We have some brilliant PhDs there.
And it was funny when when I first

(21:46):
heard about enhanced speech,
I don't know if we ever shared this,
but the research I called it Awesomeizer.
And so the Awesomeizer,
when I
first saw it and I was enthralled by
it,
I talked to research
and there was, at that time, no plan
to put it in a product.

(22:06):
And one of the reasons for that was
when people were talking to customers,
no customer was asking for it. Like no
customer was asking for just an AI magical
switch that just makes it sound better. But
it's also because customers didn't necessarily know that
you could just do that and like it
would work well.

(22:27):
And so, you know, we
we brought it to market because of that.
But the way it actually works and I
am not a PhD, so I'll give you
my my dumb guy version of this. So
what it actually does is it was because,
you know, the one of the benefits of
Adobe is,
Adobe Research was able to get a big
proprietary
set of,
training data that was all

(22:50):
people in studios speaking. So to basically train
a service to say, this is what it
sent. These are the audio characteristics
of spoken audio when they're recorded in a
professional studio.
And then what happens is when somebody uploads
audio,
it looks at that audio and it just

(23:10):
says, if that audio
was recorded in a professional studio,
what do I think its audio characteristics would
look like?
And then it just generates a new version
of it, essentially.
And so it doesn't generate
voices,
and it's kind of a black box, you
know, everyone so we have a slider that
kind of lets you mix it back with

(23:32):
the original and stuff, but that's kind of
all it's doing. Because like you get basically
one result out of it.
And,
it's not general it's all based on audio,
so it's language agnostic. It doesn't know what
anyone's saying in it. It doesn't know what
language is in it.
And and sometimes you'll get weird artifacts in
it. Like, some of them might sound like

(23:53):
they have a lisp, but it's actually because
it's like cutting off a little bit of
the audio because there was a loud reverb
and it doesn't know what to do in
that section. So it's kind of guessing.
And so that's what it does. It basically
extracts out the spoken audio
from the background and says, this is what
I think it would look like, sound like

(24:13):
if it had been recorded in a studio.
So,
wildly different approach
to to audio and very much based on,
like, image generation.
Like, it's, you know, sort of looking at,
like, the spectral representation
of that audio
and then extracting it out.
You should call it magic mastering or something
like that instead.

(24:35):
I know. Well, the audio people don't tell
you, it's probably mastering. It doesn't really master.
Right?
But, yeah, I mean, it is it is
wild. And so we actually you know, I
think this is I think we started chatting
around November. That's when we launched v two.
And so,
what v two does now is also it
separates out the background

(24:57):
and then takes just the the isolated
speech,
then enhances that,
then gives you two sliders back that says,
let me slide the speech between being isolated
versus enhanced, and how much of the background
do I want in. So, now there's like
another AI service called SoundLift that's embedded in
it that does the source separation and actually

(25:17):
pulls the voices
out above the background, but then it kinda
lets you mix the background back in. See,
Rob, this is why,
you know,
there's other companies out there, but they don't
have PhDs working in a research lab coming
up with this kind of stuff.
Well, I wanted to ask you too. I
mean, it's very much tangential to this is,

(25:39):
are we getting to a point with this
technology of noise reduction and background
sound removal that
the
the whole need
that
creators need to be worried about of having
a really high quality microphone are slowly starting
to
disappear.
So, like, Todd and I have these very

(26:00):
expensive microphones.
Are we quickly coming to a time when
the quality of the microphone is somewhat
irrelevant to getting studio quality audio?
Yeah. So it's a good question. I
I don't think quite irrelevant because I think
the better audio you start with,

(26:20):
the better something like enhanced Quality and quality.
Right? So Kind of. Right. Yeah. So it's,
you know, it's it's not an accident that
we also launched a mic check service at
the same time to, like, hey. Start with
the best possible recording
you can have.
However, kind of one of the things that
we always describe is
enhanced speech is excellent at intentionally

(26:43):
recorded audio.
Mhmm. So if you, you know, if if
you're, like, recording outside outside in the world
and, you know, you there's a lot of
stuff going on in the environment
that can be harder to work with and
and sort of any AI, you you may
have some artifacts, right, some effect to it.
But if you can, like, sit in a
room

(27:04):
even with, like, a MacBook
laptop mic,
and you can, like, look at it the
right way and then speak to it specifically,
enhanced speech and and AI services in general
will do, like, a great job with that.
So I think we're getting to a point
where, not that the microphone is is irrelevant,
but you don't need it. Right? And it

(27:25):
becomes much more accessible. So if you're,
you know, a a teenager
in Brazil
using an Android device,
If you take that Android device and you,
like, put it on your desk,
and it's as quiet as you can make
the room, even though it might be reverby
because you have tile floors and whatnot,
but you intentionally record it that way, it

(27:45):
will come out great. It will come out
professional quality.
Yeah. Or even like a iPhone kind of
cable microphone,
that kind of thing, it it usually does
a pretty good job. Right? And and so
I just wonder if these really, really high
end microphones are really gonna be unnecessary.
I think for the average creator, we're already

(28:06):
seeing that Yeah. It's like, you know, these
$50 mics will
suffice if you're using a sound optimization
type of a tool like like what you
guys are offering.
They may not have to invest $600
into a Shure SM seven b. So this
is what I'm saying.
So
absolutely

(28:27):
on that that part. You know? I I
think that, again, as long as you have
a a mic A mic. Right. Right? A
mic that is, like, set up and you're
specifically recording into. Yeah.
I also think, you know so we haven't
released it in any way,
but
on fast enough hardware, enhanced speech works in
real time.

(28:47):
And so I think it's only a matter
of time
before not only is this just like a
post production process,
but just audio always sounds good.
Right? Every phone call eventually will just sound
like it's coming from a professional studio. Yeah.
Right? So I think just the world of
you give it ten years, I think the
world of bad audio will kind of go
away.

(29:07):
Well, I think one one example of that
is like a, like a Rodecaster
mixer
has built in, you know, noise reduction and
all these kind of filters,
dynamic range enhancement, and all sorts of things
that you can turn off and on in
the software. Do you see at some point
a tool like yours being built into hardware

(29:28):
too?
So
that's my dream. I mean, it's, you know,
not really a Adobe business. We built into
the microphone. Right? Yeah. I mean, I I
I mean, we also,
on the Firefly side, Adobe Firefly, which is
a host of AI services we have,
we just also launched the ability to translate

(29:49):
content in the speaker's original voice.
You know, I I think that it's inevitable
that we will have a TV
that will play
any movie
ever made
in a voice that
mimics, you know, the the talent on screen,
that makes it sound good if it's noisy.
You know, I think, like, so much of

(30:10):
this right now is at the point of
creation and post production.
I think it's not too far until it's
all in the world of, like, consumption and
listening. Yeah. Right? And then you can just
do it to anything ever. It doesn't matter
what it was. The the creator didn't need
to do it. The listener can. You know,
it's it's funny because,
at home,

(30:30):
same microphone, I have an $800
preamp
that is attached to. It goes through an
old traditional rack system with, an EQ,
a compeller,
a compressor. It has,
I have an Apex big bottom
And, you know, I've got that thing dialed
into exactly where I want it. You know,

(30:50):
I've got sound panels and, you know, say,
the sound is good. But here I am,
8,000 miles away from that studio and I'm
in a Rodecaster right now. And guess what?
It's got the big bottom built in from
Apex
into the actual,
software panel that this thing offers. So I
would imagine if I went and did an

(31:11):
AB test on how I sound
right now raw
compared to what I sound like raw at
home, there's probably not too much of a
delta. There'll be nuances of it. At the
same time,
if I was to switch the microphone out
to
a, you know, an AudioTekna a t r
2,100,
there would be a different nuance in the

(31:33):
tone. But, again,
I think in the end
with what you guys are doing here,
the
Shouldn't matter. Shouldn't matter as long again, Christian,
if you have a Blue Yeti and you're
talking into the top of it, well, then
we can't fix that because,
you know, they're not talking into the diaphragm.
They're, you know, they haven't they're using it

(31:53):
incorrectly. So,
even here, Rob and I talking a little
bit off off axis,
the mic will support it. But if, you
know, if I was directly into it all
the time, it would be better. So,
there's certain things you can't
fix. Background noise,
those types of things that happen are still
gonna show up. I remember in Honolulu,

(32:16):
in my
office studio,
I didn't I had wall units for air
conditioning,
and there was no way I could run
that while recording. So I opened the windows
to get
air and, of course, if someone started a,
you know, a blower across the street, a
lead blower, then it completely jacked my recording.
But
still in the end,

(32:39):
the product came out really nice. So I
think that,
we're living in an age right now where
there's a lot of forgiveness,
on the input. Of course, if it's bad,
it's bad. We've all heard, you know, unrecoverable
audio before.
You know, part of our challenge in doing
live events was it took us a number
of attempts to finally get to the point

(33:00):
where we could get the, you know, the
roar of a,
background in a trade show down to the
point where
we actually could, you know there was just
a muffle of that
sound. It's really hard and people
I think today more than ever
and you tie video component into this. If

(33:21):
the audio is good,
sounds good, they will stick with you much
longer than they will if the audio is
bad
because people would be very annoyed by it.
You know, I think about the early days
when we're encoding in 16 k. You know,
that audio was pretty tinny. And,
but again,
that's what we had to do in those
early days.

(33:42):
Yeah.
Yeah. I think I mean, I think bad
audio kills content. Right? I mean, I think,
especially,
you know, any of us who were listening
to podcast in 2020 when everyone needed to
start
recording remotely and and were using
Teams and Zoom and weren't really ready for
it. You listen to some of those podcasts,
like, they're unlisten you can't listen to them.

(34:04):
Right? Like, podcasts, I remember religiously listening to
and then hearing sort of that level of
quality. It just it kills the experience.
On the flip side, I also think as
creators, there's a tendency
to get obsessed with quality Holy hell. And
to think, you know, that better is just
you know, better is better. And it's you
know, everything needs to be in four k.

(34:25):
You know? Oh, and I now I need
to you know, my phone can record eight
k, and so everything needs to be in
eight k. Yeah.
And, you know, people are listening to content
on AirPods in the subway
and, you know, kind of putting it on
while they're driving.
So I think that, you know, I think
there's sort of a
and and and not formally defined, but I

(34:45):
think there's sort of, like, a a base
level of quality
that if you are below it, your content's
dead, that you need to be above.
But then I think sorta at the top,
there's a little bit diminishing returns. You know?
So I think that, you know,
the the
we we always call it the knobs and
sliders. Like, can we just give people a

(35:05):
toggle?
You can just turn it on, and I
promise you it's gonna sound good enough. Yeah.
Like, 98%
of people will like it. I think there's
also you know, it's funny even as I
I work with the
audio research team,
I mean,
that team, those ears
are all so finely tuned.
You know, they can listen to something and

(35:25):
point out all the problems with it. And
and just like, no one is ever gonna
hear that in a million years. Like, no
one is ever gonna notice that. Right? It's
the same thing with I think a lot
of people, you know, test,
like like, whether or not they can create
a voice model of their own voice, And
then they hear it and, like, that doesn't
sound like me. Well, I was like, it
sounds like you to other people. It just

(35:46):
doesn't sound like you to you. You know?
So I think that also understanding, like, who
the audience is and kind of what you
what you're planning to do with this content
is a super important part of, like, creating
good stuff and not just getting obsessed with,
like, better and better. There's a good friend
of mine, I haven't heard from him in
a number of years, but his name is
Paul Figgiani. And,
he was involved in some of the early

(36:06):
days,
working with
some pioneers in the podcasting space coming up
with audio processing. Engineer. Yeah. He's an audio
engineer. And and Paul was a fan of
the show, and and he was, like, constantly
and he he finally heard one day that
I was,
using Audition. And,
like three days later, he emailed he emailed
me like three files. Says you need to

(36:28):
put these in, you know, this filter this
filter this filter. You need to use this
in post processing and and to be honest
with you,
I could barely
tell the difference. But Paul had an ear
that was just
and some people have it. It's just like
wine. Wine to me is wine. You know,
I don't taste a different yeah. I might
know the difference between a Merlot or, you

(36:49):
know, or Cab, but that's good wine and
bad wine. Right. But yeah. They taste Dimitishing
returns up to the top. Right. So and
I think other you know, and there's also
I've been in events where, you know, you
go in and the there's a, you know,
you have the hardcore
audio fill that is, you know, they got
the $5,000
amplifier and they're wearing, you know, the $2,000

(37:11):
headphones and they're immersed. But and I'm thinking,
yeah. But like I said, most of us
are just listening to music on AirPods.
So,
and again, obviously, the quality on them have
improved over the years and
but it's it is,
I think there is a fine line. Lower
quality.

(37:31):
Yeah. For sure. And and do you really
need to have that deep unspoken word?
Yeah. And just and and knowing sort of
also what you're trying to accomplish and what
story you're trying to tell. Right? Like, you
you brought up sort of the the roar
of a trade show. Yeah. You know, our
conference floor.
When we first sort of had released Enhanced

(37:52):
Speech,
we had a bunch of example videos that
were recorded at Adobe Max, which is our
big conference. And so, it's on, you know,
the studio floor. Yeah.
And
you toggle it on and it sounds super
clean like it was recorded in a studio.
Wow. But when you look at it, you're
like it's like uncanny valley. You're like, well,

(38:13):
you need the background noise. Like, see that
person is not in a studio. Right. Right?
So, you kinda like need some of that
background noise, which is what led to us
kinda adding that stuff. So, you know, I'll
I'll again, sort of, like, understanding what it
is you're trying to Yeah. To come to
to get across to the listener is an
important part of the process. But at the
same time, I've been in some events where
I've been holding the microphone
and a person that kept moving off axis

(38:35):
and they're driving you crazy and you have
a huge number of people.
So sometimes you just need to get the
stuff isolated so you can hear it.
And,
obviously,
controlled environments and most podcasters are as well.
But then again, there's podcasters that are doing,
you know, podcasts in bars and you know,
so you want a little bit of that,

(38:57):
like you said, that background ambiance.
You know, they're not drinking beer in this
sterile environment or doing shots or whatever they
may be doing.
So,
yeah, so there's it's nice that you've added
that.
Rob, go ahead.
Yeah. I was just going to kind of
expand on this topic, too, because I've done

(39:17):
some videos,
that
I've run through the audio optimization
processes,
for the videos. And the videos were like
filmed either in my car while I'm driving
or something like that. And it's maybe what
and it plays into exactly like what what
you guys were saying is that sometimes the

(39:37):
expectation of the audio quality,
doesn't match
with what the actual audio quality is.
And that's what it get gets into this
conversation around.
Well, if I'm
doing a recording in my car
while I'm I'm driving
and people are seeing a video, but they

(39:58):
can hear me talking at the same time
and the audio sounds like I'm speaking into
an s m seven b that there's kind
of like a maybe a disconnect there from
the standpoint of, well, his audio shouldn't sound
that good.
But he's cool that he does. Absolutely. Right.
So I I've had that experience too, and
it's
it's great. You know you know, I
can listen to my video and I can

(40:20):
say, well, that audio sounds terrific, but
but it does seem a little odd to
have that quality of audio in the car
while you're driving. So
anyway,
you know, and I've I've worked with these
tools for a while now in a
in,
you know, down this path of
the record anywhere and you just run it
through this algorithm and it cleans it up

(40:42):
and makes it sound perfect.
And which is great for a lot of
you know,
situations that you can get into.
But I I also know that your platform
on your premium plan is now working with
video too. So you're doing that same thing
where you're processing a video,
but you're fixing the audio in the video

(41:03):
and making it better.
Is that right? It's so Yeah. It absolutely.
So it's funny, you know, in especially at
Adobe too. Right? People tend to think
audio and video. But, yeah, audio is a
very important part of video. Right. Right? And
so, you know, when we first launched enhanced
speech,
people were yelling at us. Like, this needs

(41:23):
to support video. I use it for a
lot of video.
And and and big spoiler, we're gonna be
bringing video to our recording. We're gonna be
bringing video to our editing,
because it's just what we hear from people.
It's kinda what they need. It's a hot
thing now. Right, Mark?
Yeah. It it's funny too. It's I
so we're, like, we're researching it a lot
around, like, recording too.

(41:46):
And kinda what we're learning is so, you
know, we we do, like, the local recording
of audio right now when you record in
Adobe Podcast. Mhmm. To do that for video
is,
you know, a big technical challenge. It's solvable,
but it's a big investment.
But so we've been analyzing, well, could we
just do cloud recording of video,

(42:07):
but the local audio like,
are people as particular about the video quality
as they are about the
audio
quality? And and as we talk to users,
like, it turns out that for stuff like
what we're doing, right, like talking head videos,
podcasts,
the audio is actually way more important than
the video, that people are pretty forgiving
of, you know, a couple artifacts on a

(42:29):
on a talking head video or two people
having a conversation
if the audio sounds good.
And so it kind of becomes this flip
of of
when it when it is audio first
content or videos,
the audio needs to be better than the
video because
you can't do it the other way.
It was So it's yeah. Just interesting to

(42:49):
kinda learn
what people actually
enjoy consuming and listening to.
So I I was using a variety of
tools to do this show from here. When
I'm home, I have a very high end
system.
I have a TriCaster.
It's it's completely overkill, but I get
incredibly good
video captures
and the audio chain's

(43:10):
really, really good as well. But when I
came
to this type of situation, which is more
like most content creators are doing now that
are on the podcasting side and having the
video portion, my challenge really was
I was getting one or the other. I
was getting either great video or I was
getting great audio, and I wasn't really getting

(43:31):
both with some of the tools that are
out there.
And,
it was really driving me insane.
So
this is one of the reasons why I've
changed
up what we're doing when I'm in this
location and how I'm recording.
Yeah. And we're back. I'm recording the you
know, just so everybody knows, we're I'm using

(43:52):
Zoom, but that's not where the master recording's
happening for the video.
The master recording's happening in OBS now. But
I am doing a backup recording in Zoom
in case something goes sideways, which is, you
know, backup. But I would not use
the Zoom video
that is is it can
get weird. It can get pixelated as someone's

(44:13):
connections a little bit better, and it could
happen here too. But
I think your idea of
if if you can have it so that
you record both the video and audio locally
and upload
even if the person has to wait until
a little bit of time
after the the live event,
that to me is the best best solution,

(44:36):
for getting both a good quality,
audio recording and video. Because
if if I say something and my connection
goes a little bit sideways, the computer will
catch it.
The live will suck,
but the master will still be good because
we still have the master recording and same
thing on each of your screens.

(44:58):
Me, I think that is the way to
to to really get that well. Now you
sure you could you could build a cool
interface similar to Riverside or StreamYard.
But, again, I tried both of those tools
and they have their own
limitations. StreamYard's,
cloud recording sucks. It's horrible.

(45:18):
Where Riverside has great video recording, but the
studio tools weren't that good.
So,
I think if you can get a combination
of both, you'll you'll knock it out of
the ballpark.
You'll compete heavily in that regard.
Yeah. So we I mean, we haven't made
decisions on exactly
how we'll roll it out.
But I will say that

(45:40):
in
the the kinds of so you it's hard
to fill gaps in audio, right, when recording.
Right. It's not that hard to record gaps
in video. That's true. If you have jaggies,
right, if you have a stutter,
that's where I think there's a role for
AI
to be able to, like, fill those gaps
Mhmm. And make it sound good. Right? So

(46:01):
that won't work on a motion picture you're
editing in Premiere, maybe. Right.
But it definitely works for sort of the
kinds of stuff that people would be creating
and working
on in Adobe Podcasts. Right? So
again, I think that, you know, we kinda
always joke about, like, what's enhanced video gonna
look like, right, to sit alongside enhanced speech?
What is enhanced music gonna sound like?

(46:23):
So I think there's a lot of opportunity
to kind of solve some of those problems
because,
yeah, local recording might be great, but also,
you know, if you're that Brazilian teenager on
a low power Android device,
I can't hold the whole thing. Right? I
can't the memory on that can't hold that
local recording.
So there's a big opportunity for, you know,
with the distribution and the reach that Adobe

(46:45):
has to make something that is, like, super
accessible
to a whole bunch of storytellers that, you
know, have have a lot of trouble creating
those kinds of pieces content now. It's just
like I think it's all a balance and
and we'll figure it out. It's just like
right now, I've got a light adjusted wrong.
So I'm getting a little refraction in my
glass and it's driving me absolutely crazy. I
can't fix that. It it's it's there. It's

(47:06):
gonna live.
I can fix it in I can fix
it, after I get done and adjust the
light, but I can't. You said maybe you
can fix it. But,
right now, you know, it's doing live. There's
no way to fix it.
Yeah. This I mean, live is definitely trickier.
Right. I will also say,
I had a call earlier today,

(47:29):
just as the sun was going down, and
I noticed the reflection of the screen in
my glasses.
So twenty minutes before I joined this call,
I put my contacts in.
It wouldn't have just when I talk to
you both.
Yeah. No. So there's still things you're gonna
need to do Yeah. The content better.
Yeah. I would love to be able to
actually do

(47:49):
do my show
entirely with a lavalier, but the problem with
the lavalier,
it is that it just doesn't have the
same kind of quality. So I've got a
little lavalier,
And a lot of people now are just
doing videos now holding their little tiny microphone
in front of their mouths now more and
more. That's Yeah. Been the hot thing to
do.
But that's

(48:10):
kind of what I'm talking about as far
as being able to to do this with
a just a small mic that you maybe
put on your lapel or something like that.
It could be wireless. It could be anything
like that. And
and we could actually just get
rid of these things, right, and take them
out of the picture. And
and I think it would improve the quality

(48:32):
of the video too, so
so we don't have the the big hardware
right in our faces. So so I was
just trying to Yeah. Show that. It's,
yeah. Absolutely. It's funny.
As a as a product creator,
it's
really easy
to fall into the trap of, like, how
having a narrative in your head about, like,

(48:54):
who the users are and who the people
are using your tool and kinda Right. What
they have at their disposal.
Right.
And when you do it right and you
talk to a lot of people, you learn
a bunch of things you would've never realized
or thought.
I was talking to a correspondent who works
with BBC,
and they were telling me
about, you know, when they have correspondents all

(49:16):
over the world,
the different regions that they're in bring different
audio challenges. Right? So you're in The Middle
East. There's a lot of marble there, a
lot of reverb in the interior spaces where
you tend to record. Right.
You know, Brazil, Latin America is similar. There's
a lot of, you know, tile everywhere because
of the the climate.

(49:36):
In India,
a lot of spaces are very small. And
so, again, a lot of reverb.
I talked to somebody who who made education
content, they had a creator,
in Africa,
and they would
record outside
at night
because
that's when it was the quietest, but there
were crickets in the background. Right. So, like,
the crickets were always in all the content.

(49:59):
It's always something. And so, you just, you
know, you start to realize that, you know,
hey, even if you can get the fancy
mic,
a lot of you know, even if you're
a professional, even if you're, you know, a
BBC journalist, you're gonna be in places where
you're still gonna have challenges. Right? And so,
again, I think that's,
to me, the perfect place that, like, AI
can

(50:19):
help create,
you know, the or or help people create
content that would be hard to create otherwise.
We also always hear
the word save.
It is so common that somebody goes to
record something with somebody,
and the loud valere
isn't turned on or wired correctly. And the
only audio they have is the mic audio

(50:40):
from the camera. Yeah. We've all done that.
And so that's what they you know, that's
what they're stuck with. But,
yeah, you can enhance it and you can
still use it. You know, we've had it
just I won't name them, but there are
several big name podcasters
who have been saved by enhanced speech plenty
of times because of hardware setups and, you
know, glitches that happen throughout the show. Yeah.
It's gonna happen.

(51:02):
It's kinda funny because you guys may saw
me moving around here. I figured out where
the glare was coming from. It was coming
from the notes that Ravi sent over. You
know, that white screen was enough to cause
the glare.
Wasn't the light at all.
You know, I it's a it's an interesting
time
now,
with so many people trying so many

(51:23):
different things, you know, when it comes to
to audio and you you look at TikTok
and some of those believe it or not,
some of some of the audio on TikTok
is pretty bad because, you know, they just
Oh, yeah. They this is where they're you
know, you know, they they're trying to record
into a ring light and, you know, maybe
they have a mic, maybe they don't.
But I think there's lots of opportunities out

(51:44):
there and,
I I I'm kind of excited. So on
Adobe Podcast Premium,
it ties in Adobe Express.
How are you seeing that utilization?
Are the people using the Adobe Podcast product
and then they're going straight into Express? Or
what what does the usage look like between
those two
those two products?

(52:05):
Yeah. So far, what we see is is
sort of maybe adjacent workflows or, like, people
supporting kind of one way or another. So
a hobbyist who uses Adobe Express to
make videos and and graphics to support their
Etsy business,
decides to
record voiceovers and podcast or or make a

(52:27):
podcast about their hobby.
We also see sort of the other way
around, right? So, people who record something and
then you need cover art. So, the cover
art in Adobe Express is a great place
to do that.
You know, there's a captions tool,
within Adobe Express.
And so, you know, I think over time,
you'll see us do a better job of

(52:48):
sort of integrating
workflows across the two tools.
But one thing that we've noticed sort of
more broadly,
just in the creative ecosystem
is,
you know, you sort of mentioned TikTok. Like,
there's a new generation of creator
who is
used to not having end to end workflows,

(53:08):
who is used to using three or four
tools
to do each one of those tasks. Right.
You know? So Right. They record somewhere, they
edit somewhere, they use this tool to, like,
create all the clips that they put on
social, they use this tool to add the
captions to them.
And so, you know, I think that our
first point is
to help expose the people who are using

(53:29):
podcast to the things that Express can do
for them even if, you know I think,
same thing. Like, I think we can get
obsessed at Adobe with, like it needs to
be that you can, like, easily just transfer
the project over here and keep working on
it. But I think the starting point is
also just the education
of just, like, making sure that, you know,
people know everything that they have,

(53:50):
available to them. And, you know, for
I'm a little biased, but, you know, for
$9.99 a month to have all of podcasts
and all of Adobe Express avail available to
you. Yes. It's amazing.
It it is amazing. And
if you do an a b comparison for
people that are listening or watching this,
and I think it's important to watch budget

(54:10):
for
for creators
because what we see is
usually the hosting part of
the bill is the least expensive part of
their entire budget. They're spending x number of
dollars for
an AI tool. They're spending x number of
dollars for an editor. They're spending x number
of dollars for maybe a a headline or

(54:31):
a Canva or whatever it may be. And
the next thing you know, they've got
a hundred dollars wrapped up in additional charges
per month.
Whereas
that doesn't have to be the case. And
I'm pretty you know, I I I I
raised five kids. So and I was living
in Hawaii at the time, so I was
super budget
budget conscious.

(54:54):
And,
because we had to make the dollars go
a long ways.
So
in order
to reduce spend and have a product that
is just as good,
to me is important. So that's why, you
know, I apply to you guys on that
$9.99
price
point.
And I think that's where people should really
maybe their eyeballs open up here

(55:14):
a little bit.
And and thinking about this, if you're starting
to be, you know, especially with economy the
way it is right now, be budget conscious.
You know, I'll be honest with you. I'm
a I I can draw stick figures,
you know.
I could barely find my way around,
you know, when it came to editing stuff

(55:36):
in
Photoshop or whatever years we go, it's just
like I would screw things up more than
I would fix things.
So
for me,
a tool that is simple, templated,
gives me what I need maybe isn't
a masterpiece
if I was an expert in all those
other tools.
But, you know, you can get pretty pretty

(55:58):
doggone good and something that looks really super
professional,
at $9.99
a month. I think that's the for me,
that's the thing that makes me say, wow.
You know?
Yeah. I mean, I think that's the, you
know, the the product challenge for us too.
You know, you mentioned earlier that,
you know, you use 15%
of any given tool. And I think with

(56:19):
Pro Tools, that's, you know, definitely the case.
But I think that's the case with mobile
software. Just everyone kinda uses a different 10
or 15%. That's right.
So right? So our our game is sort
of, can we across all the things you
need to do to create this stuff Yeah.
Can we have a good opinion on, like,
what we believe the most important 10 or

(56:39):
15% of functionality across all those kinds of
tools are?
And then give
just that to people, right, at, like, an
an accessible price point to help them create
whatever it is they need to create.
Right? So it's it's you know, we all
spend a ton of time. You know, everyone
on our team has has a a pretty
big background in just tooling.

(57:00):
And so we all are very opinionated on
kind of what you know, how do we
deliver on that promise? And, again,
knowing that
we'll always be able to maintain the certain
level of simplicity
because
we have the pro grade tools. You know?
A lot of
a lot of our tools are fighter jets.
Right? It's like getting in the cockpit of

(57:20):
a fighter jet when you open Photoshop. Yeah.
It is an amazing piece of technology.
Right? It has created, you know,
countless, you know,
important works that are, you know, part of
our culture.
But there's a learning curve. And I'm just
putting How do we And I'm just putting
my number 10 or 15%.
And I'm just putting text on an AI

(57:40):
generated image, you know. So, you know, I'm
using point 001%
of Photoshop's
ability where it can be done in the
express and,
you know, so
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's a it's a
fun challenge as being somebody who, you know,
builds products. Yeah.
So this topic is really interesting because

(58:01):
I was watching a a panel of,
AI kind of experts and where they were
seeing
the,
tooling that would be driven by AI as
you look to the future. And
and this one person I was
hearing talk up on stage on a panel
was from Hollywood. Right? Was from the movie

(58:21):
industry.
And so what what he was doing was
trying to create AI tools
that matched with the expectations
of the studios and how they like to
produce movies. Right? So, you know, there are
separate steps that go into every
movie production. Right? And if you apply AI

(58:41):
tools to do
some part of each step of this, that
that will fit in better with the human
workflow process. Or are we
we doing this really because we're trying to
fit in with the human workflow process,
but eventually, we will come around to
maybe
not having so many steps and trying to

(59:02):
connect those steps together.
Is there any thoughts on that?
Yeah. It's funny.
We have this debate all the time on
our team too, because I am
very aware
as somebody who's in their mid forties and
has been using creative tools forever Mhmm.
That I just have a certain way of
working. Right? Yeah. I almost never drag files.

(59:24):
I'm a file picker guy. Like,
we've had big debates where my you know,
our experienced designers, like, I drag and drop
everything onto the canvas. I was like, I
don't think I ever do that. I always,
like, go to file, click import. Right? I'm
a picker too. Apple I.
Yeah.
Totally. I think right? So I I think
that there's there's parts where,

(59:46):
I don't I don't wanna be too much
of the generational guy. But I think, like,
there are just when people are new to
a workflow,
there's an opportunity to, like, kind of rethink
what it is. Right? And so I think
when you see,
you know, Hollywood studios and the way they
create stuff
and then opportunities for AI to to accelerate
that workflow, that's obviously a huge opportunity.

(01:00:10):
But then you see, you know, movies with
a $6,000,000 budget, clean the award shows that
was edited in Premiere.
Right? You know, last year, the editing award
went to to, you know,
another film that was also edited in in
Premiere.
Those those creators are gonna have, like, completely
different workflows and different ways of thinking about
this. And and they're now gonna, you know,

(01:00:31):
sort of rise up in the industry, and
they'll all be, you know, having huge productions
at some point in their career.
And so I think, like, it will also
change. Right? And so I also think there's
an opportunity for sort of these, like,
to it's an overused term, but, like, AI
first. Right? Of, like Right. There's just gonna
be opportunities to
go record a bunch of stuff out there

(01:00:52):
and just
make it sound all as good as it
can sound and then start there. And you
don't have to worry about making sure that
you're lugging around all this audio equipment. I
think we're gonna have the same thing for
video. Right? I think, like, there's gonna be
ways to kinda iterate much faster on, like,
what shots look like that that an individual
does in a tool like Premiere, right, versus
sort of a more of a Hollywood studio

(01:01:13):
kinda workflow. So I think you're gonna have
both. Right? And I think I also think
one one of the things that I'm super
excited about is
because of the nature of AI,
it gets
trained on what has happened in the past.
Mhmm.
Right? And Yeah. I think what's gonna happen

(01:01:35):
is
certain AI outputs
are gonna then just seem like they're AI.
So even if they're not. Right? Like, I
think that, you know, when you look at
something like NotebookLM,
right, and and, like, it's like it's very
sort of, you know, NPR
style conversational podcast of two people in the
studio. Yeah.

(01:01:55):
Even if you now have two people in
a studio, I think people are gonna start
to think some of that sounds like notebook
l m and be like, oh, this is
AI. So I think people are gonna start
creating, like, different approaches to stuff in different
formats. Like, to me, almost like the the
notebook l m mold of of a tool.
Of AI. Right. It's what you're saying? It's
breaking the mold. Right? I I think that,
you know,

(01:02:16):
AI generated images that are sort of, like,
fantastical
and have a lot of, like, light blues
and light pinks in them,
and that everybody kinda just, it looks like
AI now. Yeah. And so I think you're
gonna have, that sounds like AI. That kinda
looks like AI video. And so I think
you're actually gonna have
a whole bunch of people doing new stuff.
You know? This whole, like, I think AI

(01:02:36):
avatars and the social media videos,
all that tooling
is gonna make all of that stuff look
like it's AI generated, which is gonna make
people create something completely different.
Right? And so I think it is gonna,
like I think people are gonna just continue
to break the mold. And so I think
social media content will look different, podcasts will
sound different, Movies will start to look different

(01:02:58):
because
everything is you know, a whole bunch of
things are gonna start to feel like AI,
and people are gonna wanna break that mold.
And I think so. I think that's kind
of what I think is super exciting about
about where we're headed with those. If if
we take it Do you see Adobe playing
a role in that?
Yeah. I think, you know, I think Adobe
can play a bunch of roles. You know,
I think Adobe can definitely

(01:03:18):
play the role of there's a Hollywood end
to end workflow, and we can help make
it more efficient in a bunch of places.
I think we're gonna have a a bunch
of tools that let anybody
create really professional looking content.
And then I think, you know, back to
kinda where we started,
we're gonna have the tools that people are
gonna help break the mold with.

(01:03:39):
One of my favorite things is,
I guess, Illustrator now is, I don't know,
thirty four years old, 35 years old. When
Illustrator first came out, its tagline was, we
don't even know everything it can do for
you.
And, like, that to me is just like
the guiding light of a creative tool. I'm
just like, I don't even know what people
are gonna do with this stuff. When we

(01:03:59):
launched Enhanced Speech, people started taking it and,
like, adding
the artifacts
to ambient music
and, like, EDM.
Because, like, they actually like the roboticness
of, like, the service getting something wrong.
And so they like mixed it into a
whole bunch of tracks. So there's a whole
bunch of weird stuff, like people will create
and break the mold. And so I think

(01:04:19):
Adobe can sort of play a role in
all of it, which is, you know, again,
not
to drink the Kool Aid too much, but
it's a super fun business to
to be part of. But if we bring
it back down to basics, I'll be kind
of frank, especially for new creators.
This is the people that I'm worried about
the most
is they get really overwhelmed. We're talking a
lot of real cool stuff here. But I

(01:04:40):
think what I've
seen and at least my mindset is when
it comes to Adobe Podcasts and Adobe Premiere,
and excuse me. Adobe Express
is the
ability
for someone that,
again, is getting started. They're new. They're gonna
get in. They're gonna record their podcast. They
have a simple editing tool. They got this

(01:05:01):
great way to get enhanced audio out,
and it's a process that
doesn't take a lot of time. A lot
of a lot of content creators today get
so far in the weeds. Oh, I I
edit for four hours on my show. If
I had to edit for four hours, I
would have quit
nineteen years ago.
I I just couldn't have done it. So
we want people to focus on the content,

(01:05:24):
allow the tools to,
you know, get them to the point where
they've got a great sounding podcast without having
to spend
five hours editing something and they get wrapped
around the axle.
Let let's let them get five years into
the content or three years into the content
before they get completely wrapped around the axle
and doing three hours of editing or have
someone to hire that does that editing.

(01:05:44):
I think there's got to be a point
in the beginning
and I think the thing I always tell
content creators, just hit record. Let's get it
recorded.
Do minor editing. Let's get it out the
door. The product's gonna change. Your first step
tenth episode is not gonna sound like your
first and so on and so forth. And
I think this was my
major appeal with Adobe podcast

(01:06:05):
was
that it wasn't to me wasn't overwhelming.
I took a new gal that we had
working for us. Hey,
do a demo video real quick. Just go
in, figure out how to use Adobe podcast.
And like, she's like, well, that's easy.
And
I think that's the key. It's real easy.

(01:06:27):
And you get a great product.
Yeah. I think it's I think getting, you
know, it's it's like how to write a
great novel. Right? You just, like, write the
first page and get started. So I think
that, you know,
we need to make it as easy as
possible for people to create stuff.
Again, I also think that the the tools

(01:06:48):
and simplicity
sometimes changes the the form. Right? Like, I
think now when you watch a lot of
YouTube videos, like, you'll see a lot of
jump cuts because a lot of people do
text based editing. Yeah. Right? And and it's
just become part of the format, and I
think everyone's okay with it. Right?
And so I think that, yeah, you kinda
get started and you start. And and, you

(01:07:09):
know, even back to some of the the
AI stuff, like, I think the new creative
journey is usually about mimicry.
It's usually about sort of
wanting to create something that seems like the
thing that that you enjoy. Yeah.
Lin Manuel Miranda tells a great story of,
like, the first time he ever went to
go see a live musical was Rent. And

(01:07:29):
he was like, and I immediately came back
and wrote a whole bunch of things that
sounded exactly like Rent. All right? And then
you sort of find your own voice. And
so I think that
easily accessible tools and AI
help people start the creative journey.
And usually that's gonna be
mimicry of some sense, right? Of like seeing
the kinds of videos they see on YouTube,

(01:07:50):
the kinds of podcasts that they listen to
and get started there.
And then, and then hopefully,
instead of three or four years down the
road where they get obsessed with
the the the craft of editing,
you know, maybe they get obsessed with, like,
the craft of creation. And because the editing
is so much easier, they can just, like,
push themselves and try different things. Right? And

(01:08:12):
once you can create content much faster, you
can just try a lot of different stuff.
And so I think that that's, again, sort
of what is, I think, exciting about this
whole AI revolution, if you wanna call it
that, is I think it's gonna make it
so much easier for anyone to create stuff.
And then I think it's gonna make it
so much easier to, like, break the mold
and bring out new stuff no one has

(01:08:32):
seen or thought about before.
You talked a little bit about the l
n notes. I think that's what it was.
Right? The
Notebook l n? Yeah. Yeah. And Yeah. You
know, I could see right now you can
hear that audio and just know immediately where
it came from. But what I would foresee
happening with that product is they may dumb
it down a little bit to make it

(01:08:52):
make peep make the voices make a mistake.
You mean like,
okay. The AI would not normally make a
mistake. Was that an
AI or was it not?
So I Thought it's just a setting Yeah.
That you have to do. Yeah. More human
like errors. Yeah. Have a have a sneeze
in there or a cough or something like
that or too many ahs and umms, you

(01:09:14):
know. Have that,
have that Yeah. Typical thing that we have
with but again,
at what point
just like you guys and some of the
tools that you've created is, you know, I
I record my voice for three hours and
or whatever it requires to train a product.
And the next thing I know, I'm speaking
French
on some
Yeah. I I don't know. I'm pretty I'm

(01:09:36):
pretty optimistic about this kind of stuff. Like,
I
I think when you create this kind of
AI content,
I I think you should not try and,
like, mimic that they're humans. Oh. Right? I
think that's gonna I think that falls apart
fast. Right? Yeah. Again, like, even now when
you listen to it and and it's, you
know, kind of been in the public consciousness

(01:09:57):
for, what, six months,
it has a sound. Right? And so I
think that nobody wants to listen to AI
that they think are humans.
But and and I think some of the
conversational artifacts that they put in there with
the umms and the ahs, I actually think
that goes away because what I want out
of a tool like that is, like, I
wanna dump, like, all my educational content into

(01:10:17):
it. And then I wanna, like, listen to
that when I walk to class, right, or,
like, when I'm driving to, like, be able
to consume information in a in a more
efficient way or a more enjoyable way. So
I think that that's where that stuff goes.
Right? And then I and then I think
that, again, the
human beings are gonna lean into creating stuff
that feels very different and authentic.

(01:10:40):
And I think that we may be in
this middle ground where people are trying to
get away with
AI avatars that people think we're humans and
stuff. Yep. But I think, like, as we
all kinda get exposed to it, I actually
don't think that's what people want. Right? I
think it's it's
it's it's attractive because of, like, oh, content
production cost cut down so much and Yeah.

(01:11:00):
You know? But I think that stuff gets
relegated to
online learning and and, you know, the the
the training materials that we have to watch
all the time working in a big company.
And then I think on the sort of
social media side,
there's a place for it, but I think
it it changes. I and I think, like,
again, five, ten years from now, I don't
think
mimicking, you know, AI mimicking humans,

(01:11:23):
is kinda where sort of entertainment plays itself.
I definitely hope it gets separate out and
marked.
That's something that's important to me is to
have it marked so that, you know, now
I can tell if I watch a YouTube
video and it's, you know, it's that voice
you hear every time. I I immediately back
out. I I think we're all going to
be seeking
original voices. I think it's gonna become more

(01:11:44):
important as time goes on. So podcasters, YouTubers,
anyone that's creating original content,
I think people are gonna seek that out
because, like you said, I agree with you
too. The AI stuff should be relegated to,
you you know, the the one hour,
training
content you have to listen to, every quarter
or whatever it is from from your company.

(01:12:05):
So,
yeah. Who knows? Maybe But I but I
think if
if I had the option to,
you know, watch shows from another country and
another language that I couldn't watch other languages
or, like, I love watching,
you know, cricket highlights that aren't in English,
and now I can Yep. Listen. So I
think that and, like, I'll know it's an

(01:12:26):
AI voice. I'm totally fine with that. I'm
good with that too. But Yeah. It now
makes it more accessible. I think, again, like,
I think this, like, makes the world sort
of more,
fluid and accessible and kinda open stuff up
to other people,
in a way that, you know, wouldn't happen
without AI versus,
you know, people trying to use AI to
just kinda get one over on you and

(01:12:48):
pretend it's a human being. There was a
time when I was watching some foreign films
or Italian specific kind of these dark
dramas that were where it only came out
of Italy for a while. And and, of
course, it was all subtitled.
I would have loved to been able to
hear
that in that in English, you know.
So I think yeah. Yeah. Right? There's a

(01:13:09):
place. There's some there's some stuff that will
get a budget that they can, you know,
localize across different languages, but there's a lot
of stuff that doesn't. And so if you
can use AI to
build audiences and, you know again, and I
think and going the other way too, you
know, again, I think we always in a
lot of these conversations, we think about, like,
English centric and then being able to, like,

(01:13:29):
put it in other languages so, people in
other countries can listen to our stuff.
But the other way around. Right? Like, again,
there's tons of creators in in Brazil, in
India, in, you know, Mexico, Turkey who could,
you know which are, by the way, like,
the four countries that are the biggest for
Adobe Podcast after The US.

(01:13:50):
That can create a bunch of stuff that
is then in English. And then not only
can English audiences appreciate it, but then you
can also run English ads against it so
those creators can, you know, make better ad
rates, like, a whole bunch of kinda stuff
that just, like, changes, I think, what the
sort of online economy around content creation and
and and viewing looks like. And there's a

(01:14:11):
series of, Portuguese
podcasts that are they get massive numbers and
million listeners per episode designed for factory workers.
And I've always wanted to listen to one
of those shows and to understand what what
are they saying to keep these people listening
three hours to a three hour program every
day.
You can hear the excitement in the voice,

(01:14:31):
but I don't speak Portuguese. So I just
I kinda have to wonder,
you know, is it have comedy? Is it
you know? And again so I think
there'll be the ability then to learn from
other content creators and learn learn new ideas
from different countries too.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Right? And then and then
every country has their version of the podcast

(01:14:51):
for factory workers that is based on sort
of, you know I mean, we see it
with with television all the time. Right? Yeah.
There's, you know, America's Got Talent is in
every country and every language. And so I
think you're gonna see that
down the stack at the podcast level, you
know, as as kind of the stuff becomes,
more prevalent.
Robbie, getting more questions for Mark before we

(01:15:12):
let Mark go?
Well, yeah. I just I was just thinking
about something too. So something that I've seen
happen a lot with video on
on YouTube
lately is these
compilation videos, right, where people are pulling
real world
video
from from libraries

(01:15:33):
and then tying them together with
a a story of sorts, right, that
changes and transitions and things like that. And
so I think
those videos I've seen that actually are real
human
characters in there, but maybe an AI voice
or
a compilation
that is generated by AI of human voices,

(01:15:56):
that are actually talking about a specific topic
and how AI can kind of, like, mix
and match
and create
something new
out of something that's
preexisting
or, or that already has been produced by
a big creator or something like that is
what I'm seeing. Like I've got up on
my screen
right right now a video that's doing the

(01:16:17):
exact same thing as that. It's got
a hundred thousand views or or that kind
of thing. So I think that there is
kind of AI generated content that will
drive,
audience.
It's just, you know, what's the topic? What's
the relevance of the topic? And how trusted
is the the source
for that? And how good is it produced

(01:16:39):
is going to be the other element here.
And is some of those video and some
of that audio
AI generated or or not? So I think
that there
there may be a hybrid of what we're
talking about here, which is the combination of
AI plus human creators
kind of collaborating together to create content.

(01:17:01):
So it's gonna be Yeah. I think, you
know, I think the AI workflows we was
gonna talk about with this human in the
loop. Right? Where there's, like, a human who's
part of it that,
I think, again, is, yeah, super necessary. And
I think,
these kinds of
tools, like, are gonna
open up new kinds of content that wouldn't
have been made otherwise.

(01:17:22):
I do also think that it's gonna also
lead to a lot of slop. Right? There's
gonna be just a lot of slop. That's
the new term now, slop. Right? Yeah. It
is. I I remember
so my my daughter is now 11, and
I remember when she was, I don't know,
three,
we made the mistake of of putting on
YouTube. It was the first time she ever
watched it. And it was some, like, animated

(01:17:43):
little, you know, nursery rhyme video. And then,
like, two videos in, there was just, like,
a creepy version of that kind of thing
with, like, an obvious, like, synthetic voice singing
a song and just obvious, like, bad three
d graphics. And I was just like, oof.
And so that that was the beginning and
the end of her YouTube watching career.

(01:18:03):
So there's also gonna be a lot of
that. Right? Because for a lot of the,
you know, the possibility of of of making
one of those videos that gets a hundred
thousand views,
a lot of that's gonna come from making,
like, a million of them. Right. And so
there's just gonna be a lot of stuff
out there that is also completely unwatchable. I
call it the new forum spam.
You know, that's what it really is. It's

(01:18:24):
it's it's video spam.
Video spam. Companies are gonna be using this
this technology to produce promo videos for all
sorts of different things, I'm sure. Yeah.
Yeah. And this is all side of it.
I I guess this is also just the
nature of media and the nature of creation.
Right? I mean,
this is, you know, there's always gatekeepers who

(01:18:45):
owned the studios,
who were in charge, owned all that actors
and actresses, right? And kind of then TV,
then cable. Like, it just, it always goes
down, right? And so I think that you're
we're definitely living in a world of, like,
abundance
when it comes to content. Love it. And
I think, you know, a mix of of
the platforms,

(01:19:05):
and audiences and people
kind of just continue to sift through it.
So there's always a learning curve. There's going
to be a lot of slop out there
for a while, but,
I don't know. I think we're going to
get
better new original
sort of stories and,
things that we've never seen before sort of
coming out the other side of this.

(01:19:26):
Well, it it's definitely gonna be exciting time,
for sure. And, you know,
any projections
then on Adobe Podcasts and Adobe Premiere I
mean, Adobe Express. Excuse me. Again, I keep
for some reason, I keep going back to
Premiere.
You know, what it's looking like for the
next year.
Yeah. Yeah. I would say that the two

(01:19:47):
big focuses we have,
is yeah. I think video is gonna become
a bigger and bigger part of the workflows
and and the platform itself.
And then
back to sort of the way I had
described our AI vision of just like, let's
look at all these things that take a
lot of time,
either setting up or in the editing process,

(01:20:09):
and how can we use AI to solve
that for people and make it much easier?
So, you know, people have that across
a whole bunch of different things when it
comes to creating clips,
enhancing video, right? Making it look good, you
know, solving dropouts.
So I think that, you know, we'll continue
to collaborate with Adobe research pretty tightly and

(01:20:30):
making sure that, you know, we can just
help people create great stuff,
without needing
to be a pro or have tons of
time or big budgets to get that stuff
done. Awesome.
Rob, do you have anything else for Yeah.
I was just gonna ask, let's let's talk
about kind of how a person would,
sign up and what they would get,

(01:20:52):
as part of you know, it looks like
that there's two plans. There's a free plan,
and then there's a premium plan. You know,
if you could talk a little bit about
the free plan and what people get with
that and how that works.
Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's a pretty,
like, affordable and open platform in general. So

(01:21:12):
it's a freemium product. Right? So there is
a free version that can be free forever,
that you can use, and then there's a
a premium version if you upgrade.
And even that has a thirty day trial
on it. So the free version,
you can,
record unlimited
record, but exporting up to thirty minutes up
to two projects a day.

(01:21:35):
On,
enhanced speech, you can enhance up to an
hour's worth of stuff every day for free.
If you, you know, record in in,
studio,
you can enhance it there. If you have
something you've already recorded a piece of audio,
you can upload it. And then premium is
really about
sort of almost like how how much time

(01:21:57):
do you have. You know? Like,
there's a lot of stuff you could do
in the free version if you have a
lot of time on your hands.
But if you, you know, need to to
work faster,
get stuff out quicker,
that's where in premium, we have additional sliders.
We have video support so you can upload
a video directly, not just the audio like
you can in free.

(01:22:19):
Unlimited recording,
unlimited,
exports.
We launched something called audiogram. So if you
have piece of audio, you can share that
on social. It creates a video with the
animated transcript.
So, you know, and then of course the
$9.99 plan also comes with Adobe Express. And
Adobe Express Premium has, you know, hundreds of

(01:22:40):
thousands of templates for
logos, for graphics,
a video editor, motion graphics. I mean, pretty
much and you you could build an end
to end marketing department with,
podcast and express for what you get for
for $9.99. So it's, it's pretty pretty solid
deal that I feel pretty good about. So
is the service,

(01:23:02):
based on
a a browser usage model, or is there
an app associated with it?
Yeah. So it's actually all browser based. Yeah.
So it's all based on the web. So,
you know, Express as well.
So, you know, Express has a mobile app
you can download,
but it the rest of the Express experience,
yeah, is on the web. So, yeah, there's
no software to download.

(01:23:23):
And so it's sort of really easy to
use.
The whole recording and editing experience for podcasts
lives on the desktop browser.
But you can,
use,
enhanced speech to take any video off your
phone, make it sound really good,
if you have premium. So, yeah, it's a
it's a it's a mix of capabilities that,
again, sort of, I think, because of the
way we launched this,

(01:23:46):
everything that we've added has been based on
listening to users and what they need and
learning how they were using it.
And then,
how we've decided to charge for it was,
you know, you get an hour free of
enhanced speech every day, you know, and you
can come back every day and get another
hour.
So, you know, thirty hours a month for
free. It's pretty good starting point. It is.

(01:24:08):
But people who are, you know, again, sort
of, I think, working intentionally and have things
they need to get done, I think premium
is is kind of the place for them.
And for and for $9.99
a month. Come on.
It's the best it's it's a fantastic deal.
Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Be it. Yeah. Mark,
I wanna thank you for coming on. Is
there is there I don't want you to

(01:24:29):
necessarily give your email, but is there a
good way to reach the Adobe podcast team?
Or is anything or just contact So you
can, you know,
at, yeah, podcast.adobe.com
is where the, app is located.
There's a contact section there, but anyone can
always email us at [e-mail].
Awesome. And we read and look at every

(01:24:50):
email that we ever get. So feel free
to reach out. Hey. Thank you for being
with us late tonight. We definitely appreciate it.
And,
much success. And we'll we'll check back in
a year and see where the product is
and,
look forward to the, additional enhancements.
Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Appreciate the conversation, guys. Hey.
Thank you so much.

(01:25:13):
Thank you.
So, Rob,
any specific news that, we have seen that
we need to cover before we bust out
of here today?
I don't know. I don't think so. I
mean, I think I don't know. There's only,
like, five minutes left, so I don't think
we have enough to go too deep on

(01:25:34):
anything.
Alright.
I guess We can just call it
a a day here. Yeah. I guess what
we'll do is
yeah. So everyone, thanks for for tuning in
today.
And,
here. I got this on the screen. I
think I do. Let me move this over

(01:25:54):
here.
Getting used to this,
as
so yeah. I'm fumbling. Sorry.
Okay.
The only thing that's been bubbling is this
whole discussion about Spotify and Oh, yeah. Video.
Yeah. We we could spend some discussion on
that next week for sure.

(01:26:16):
Keeps spinning up there, and there's a lot
of this is this is a pretty important
topic for the the podcast landscape.
So Yeah.
And if you don't know what we're referring
to, there's a,
article on Pod News
that links to a LinkedIn article that has
gotten a lot of attention today.

(01:26:36):
Yeah.
Yeah. And it's all about, you know, the
issues that we've been talking about in this
show for, I don't know, probably a good
close to a year now, probably, about how
Spotify
is allowing people to upload video to replace
their audio and that's And some people
losing money.

(01:26:58):
Yeah.
So Yeah.
Which, you know and I've had some conversations
with people off the record that don't wanna
go on the record
that are,
you know, heavily concerned about
this particular issue. So
but anyway And I saw the

(01:27:19):
yeah. And I saw that
the Evergreen Podcast Network launched a
an experience
on,
Roku
on the video side. Oh, really?
So people are back to building Roku apps.
That's funny.
Well, I know you spent a lot of
years doing that too in the early years.

(01:27:39):
Yeah. We were interesting. So we were at
twelve, thirteen, and 14 on the Roku.
So
third party app.
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's funny how we're coming
full circle again.
Here it is.
The whole video thing is really becoming something
and I don't think we've seen the end

(01:28:00):
of this either. I think it's gonna continue
to
spin.
Yeah.
Alrighty, Brady. I'm [e-mail].
I'm at geek news on x. I'm at
[e-mail].
Rob?
I'm on x,
at Rob Greenlee, on YouTube at Rob Greenlee,

(01:28:24):
on Facebook at Rob Greenlee.
And so I'm easy to find on LinkedIn
and as well. And if you wanna send
me an email, you're certainly welcome to send
it
to [e-mail]
and that'll get to me. So I don't
have our,
AI disclosure, but just, raw here. Any AI
tool can use and index our

(01:28:46):
our content here and use for your training
models.
We authorize you to, to do that.
So Awesome. I think pretty good run on
this first try here,
and gonna make a few tweaks next week.
But otherwise I think it went smooth. Yeah.
I think it went smooth. We'll see how
the recording turned out. Little bump at the

(01:29:06):
beginning with audio. I need to check that
out, but I fixed it really quickly.
So I've got backup upon backup of recording
today. So we got a good capture one
way or the other.
So,
but anyway, thanks for being with me, Rob,
and, we'll see you,
a week from today.
Okay. Sounds great. Alright, everyone. Thanks for being

(01:29:27):
here. Bye bye.