As an unfortunate regular of the conference circuit, I can hardly overemphasize how unusual this is. Nearly every media industry event I attend immediately devolves into a parlor game of AI bingo, with the audience and panelists all waiting patiently for the subject to arise and subsume the rest of the conversation. In every other part of publishing, there is no more pressing subject matter and no greater object of hyperfixation than AI.
To compound the oddity, news of a controversial startup in the audio space has recently worked the industry into a lather. Called Inception Point AI, the company has made headlines by championing a strategy predicated on using AI-generated personalities to create podcasts, with the broader goal of turning the personalities into influencers.
The Hollywood Reporter article introducing the startup—“5,000 Podcasts. 3,000 Episodes a Week. $1 Cost Per Episode”—set off a firestorm of indignation, with thought leaders and executives in the audio industry decrying the output as “slop.”
Set against the backdrop of this uproar, the exclusion of AI from any of the Upfront programming was particularly baffling. Clearly the barbarians are at the gates. Just as ChatGPT transformed text-based production when it was introduced two years ago, the debut of Inception Point, and the launch this week of both Meta’s and OpenAI’s AI-generated social video feeds, feels like an inflection point.
‘Carbon-based’ creators
Just like its predecessor, the mission and methodology of Inception Point have been roundly criticized. Several audio executives I spoke with insisted that the intrusion of AI into the world of podcast creation would be limited to the fringes, if at all.
Their arguments border on the sentimental. If you’ve ever spoken with anyone involved in professional podcasting, the craft can be discussed with the kind of reverence that most people reserve for houses of worship. The words authenticity, connection, intimacy, and even magic come up frequently. It can get very woo-woo.
And yet, do you have a favorite podcast? As treacly as it sounds, the medium does yield a sense of intimacy unlike any other, one often rooted in a sense of connection that the listener has with the host. As a result, its practitioners are confident—adamant, almost—that it will be largely spared from the ravages of AI.
“It’s obvious that creators need to be carbon-based organisms,” said Greg Glenday, CEO of the podcast company Acast. “We use AI around the edges, but our pitch to advertisers is authenticity. That is our moat and our five-year plan.”
Others echoed the sentiment that AI poses less of a threat to podcast hosts than it does to writers or even video creators.