At the IAB Podcast Upfront in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, scores of media executives, celebrities, audio creators, and adtech vendors graced the stage to extol the virtues of podcasting.
In a series of presentations interspersed with frenzied networking breaks, panelists hit all the classic talking points: the intimacy of the medium and the efficacy it affords for advertisers; the challenges and opportunities in measurement; the need to embrace a multipronged commercial strategy; and, of course, the embrace of video that’s begun to transform the entire medium.
One topic, however, was conspicuously absent: artificial intelligence. If the technology came up at all, it was as a tool to achieve backend efficiencies, such as creative optimization, audience targeting, and streamlined editing—not as a threat to the industry, nor in any way part of the actual process of creating the podcasts themselves.