In the Clubhouse: AI in Podcasting – Part 1
“With AI coming along, I sort of look at more things being added into the workflow over the last year or so. A lot of it is, like, transcription, but also, ‘how are we gonna title the podcast?’ Show notes being written, I’m a little bit leery of, but it is used to assist in the process to write better show notes. So, I think for a long time, a lot of people have skipped over that, and AI has allowed us to write better show notes. That doesn’t mean copy-and-paste them in because AI is not… AI is, it’s an absolutely horrible writer. And I think one of the things that, I know this will come up in our discussion today, is that when you see AI stuff just being copied and pasted, you know that it has been copied and pasted.” – Matt Cundall
If there’s one topic that has captured the collective psyche over the past few years, it’s AI. But while the topic is fascinating, the uses are endless, and figuring out where it best fits into your work process is another matter entirely. The group I recently assembled on Clubhouse to talk about AI in Podcasting included a lot of veterans in the area of audio, video, and podcasting. They include voice actor and owner of The Sound Off Media Company, Matt Cundill; founder of Home Studio Mastery, Junaid Ahmed; on-air host and technical producer, mastering engineer, and podcast and audiobook post-production professional at AR Media, Sean Savage; founder of Spoken Life Media, LLC and Podcast Hall of Fame Inductee Rob Greenlee; and long-time audio technology consultant and co-host of the Pro Audio Suite Podcast, George Whittam. Each one of them had valuable insights into what tools work best for them and what tools you might want to look into for your own production.
Considering where the industry is heading, it’s probably a good idea to learn as much as you can about all these new and time-saving options. I hope you find this discussion super helpful!
As always, if you have questions for my panelists, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available and what the newest audio chats will be about. If you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help – and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts.
(0:00:00) – AI Tools in Podcast Creation
Our roundtable discussion starts as Matt introduces himself and discusses some of the strengths and weak spots of AI software, particularly when it comes to making corrections. “These tools,” he says, “have really helped, but I think if you rely on it too much, one of the things that we found out is that you can just waste as much time just by having to make corrections.” Rob joins in and shares his thoughts on the competition between cutting-edge AI startups and the major brands that are now catching up. “Some of the larger platforms,” he says, “are adding greater AI capability to them, and it’s putting a little bit in jeopardy some of the standalone AI kind of services or tools out there.”
(0:11:30) – AI Tools in Podcast Post-Production
Junaid introduces himself as well, and he tells us about some of the latest breakthroughs he’s seen in synthetic AI voices and the business boom for the voiceover artists behind them. “When they introduced the professional voice,” he says, “like, if you go in now, you can actually use some of the celebrity voices for your own stuff as well, and they’re getting paid for you to be using those voices.” Sean joins the discussion to add his experience with how AI has changed his podcasting workflow, particularly editing with AI-generated audio transcripts. “We’re not using the transcriptions to actually do transcriptions,” Sean explains. “But it’s so much easier as opposed to getting somebody to go listen through and go, ‘okay, at this timestamp, at this timestamp, go from here to here.’”
(0:22:12) – Effective Use of AI Tools
George adds his thoughts about AI editing, both its benefits for cleaning up audio and its limitations in video production. “Is the content good?” he says. “Do you want to watch it? Is it compelling? Does it connect? And if the edits are so funky and jumpy and unnatural that it just becomes distracting, then it’s not a good way to go.” He tells us about the difference it’s made for removing awkward pauses, as well as the danger of taking AI edits for granted. “So if the audio is really smooth and natural,” he explains, “then you do kind of tune out. But once you tune in to the jump cuts, you can’t un-see it.”
Episode Summary
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Rob discusses AI tools and techniques in podcasting, their benefits and limitations.
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Junaid talks about StreamYard’s acquisition by Bending Spoons and the rise of AI voiceover.
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Sean and George share their thoughts on balancing automation and human oversight.
Tune in for part two of our Clubhouse chat as we discuss the possibility of Artificial General Intelligence, or “strong” AI, as our panelists share their firsthand experiences with navigating the ethical challenges of AI, and how good punctuation became a red flag for robots.
Connect with the Panelists
Website: https://www.soundoffpodcast.com/
Connect with Matt Cundill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattcundill/
Website: https://homestudiomastery.com/
Connect with Junaid Ahmed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/superjunaid/
Website: https://armedia.ca/
Connect with Sean Savage on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-savage-34a41aa/
Website: https://www.anthropic.com/
Connect with Rob Greenlee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robgreenlee/
Website: https://georgethe.tech/
Connect with George Whittam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgethetech/
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This interview episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco.
** Transcript available upon request
