How I cut my podcast production time in half! (Using AI)

AI is now all over podcasting, and believe

it or not, this voice intro is

aigenerated. But is it good enough to

unleash in the wild? In this episode, I'm going to tell you

how I cut my podcast workflow in half, and

how you can too.

There's a massive change happening in podcast

content production driven by new technology.

Yep, you guessed it. Thanks to AI in

podcasting, these new tools are revolutionizing the

way that we podcasters create, edit, and publish our

content. And I wanted to talk to you today about the ways

AI is altering our industry, particularly at

the indie end. So right now, we're going to explore the

wider implications of AI in podcasting and talk

about the best tools right now for you.

Using AI in podcasting to halve production

time AI's recent surge

has created endless possibilities for content

creators. In the context of podcast production,

AI is streamlining processes,

enhancing content quality, sort

of, and even introducing interactive elements to

the listening experience. The real AI gold,

though, is in its ability to personalize content,

making each piece of media feel custom made for

your listener. And that's down to the prompting parameters. You're

taking time over carefully. Creating it

exhibits an uncanny ability to analyze and learn from

your previous user behavior, making it an invaluable

tool for podcasters to tailor their content to audience

preferences. AI is also proving to be an invaluable tool

in content prep and creation. Various

software packages such as chat, GPT, copy,

AI, and Jasper are being employed by podcasters

to generate show notes, episode summaries,

titles, and even your social media promotional stuff,

revolutionizing your audio editing with AI. Is it

possible AI algorithms are getting better

at automatically editing audio files, improving the

quality of them, and removing background noise or adjusting volume

levels of different speakers? It's not perfect,

but it's good. Now look, I'm an experienced,

professional podcaster with a distinct competitive edge

in audio engineering due to my sheer experience in it.

I've been dabbling with Adobe audition for more than

two decades, since it was known as Cooledit Pro. But

remember, this now is a significant advantage

for Podmaster looking to improve the overall sound

quality of their rather amateurish sounding podcast

episodes, especially when you're faced with limited experience and

tighter budgets. Tools like Orphonic have been

popular with some DIY indie podcasters for some time now, thanks

to their ability to speed up the editing and quality improvement

process. But you've now got even more accessible

solutions like the AI studio sound tool in

descript, and I definitely would suggest avoiding

using it at 100% level also, a nod here to

Adobe podcast. Yes, their noise

reduction tool can be extremely impressive if

you're using it sparingly. And believe me, we

can absolutely tell when you're relying on it. It

doesn't sound great, trust me. So don't run it over

all your audio and video content willy nilly.

So let's talk more about the AI advantage in

podcast personalization. Look, we're jumping

ahead a bit here. AI's forte lies in its ability

to personalize your content, but we're not quite there yet. We are getting

closer. Adtech is really leaning into this.

Essentially, AI can detect the kind of content each

listener prefers, making it easier for podcasters

to tailor their content accordingly. But it's not been unleashed on the

wild yet. This is all running in the back end with many company

systems. There are platforms such as audioburst that are already

using this sort of stuff for big brands to create more

engaging audio experiences that are more in line with what they think their

listeners want to hear. On the video side of things, we've got tools like

Choppity and capcut. Some of these have got pretty advanced

features that can make your clips, to quote Gen Z's

pop in your feed. Descript

offers a way to automate this process, too, but a

little bit clunky, to be honest, and it requires a lot of trial and

error. Also, AI can be used to personalize the podcast

listening experience. For instance, Spotify is currently

building AI versions of its hosts for ad reads. That's

at least according to the Bill Simmons podcast, which I've linked in the

description. The potential here, let's be honest, is immense.

In the future, a host might address a listener by

their name in a much more personalized ad just for

them. But let's go back to the power of AI

in content creation. Right now, in 2024,

one of the most popular use cases for AI in podcasting is

assisting with content creation. On the back end, AI

tools can generate show notes, episode summaries, episode titles,

episode structures, even social media assets,

and even blog posts, medium articles,

newsletter sendouts, platforms like

Castmagic, which is a tool specifically

designed and built for podcasters to generate

helpful copy related to podcast episodes. They're paving the way

in this domain. Also, AI can aid in creating

thematic playlists, creating compilations of episodes based on

specific topics or genres, and enabling listeners to

explore podcasts with similar themes easily. Now,

we'll talk more about Castmagic in a second, but let's talk about the

no brainer approach overall of

aipowered transcripts I mean, let's be honest about it,

this is a minimum now for podcasters. These

aipowered transcription services like Rev and Otter have

been transforming the podcast industry recently. These services have

been using AI and natural language processing to transcribe

audio into a text format, automatically

creating subtitles or captions for viewers with hearing

impairments, and generating the basis for SEO friendly

content. But that's the 2021

solution. Just the transcript alone that's helping

with about 10% of the problem. Now it's a must. You should

be doing a transcript as a bare minimum. Tools like cast

magic and to a slightly lesser extent

capshow are taking this one step further in

that they're actually helping to simplify the process,

drilling down into specific themes. I chatted with Greg at

Castmagic to get more insight for you about their tool

so you can hear the value offering for yourself.

Castmagic started as two guys who are running their

own vc backed companies, had a podcast. Like, we don't have

the time to run our companies. Going back to the same story, like, you are

doing more than just a podcast. So it's like, I can't do this. So they

were able to build cast magic for their own needs, and since

they've built it for their own needs, they understand like, well,

we are the users of this, so how do we make it easier for us,

better for us? And now you've got the scale of our entire

communities able to say, like, hold on, this is how I'm using it. And you're

like, oh, I didn't even think about that. Great, I'm going to build

that into the tool and make it even better for me. But it's also then

better for you. So it's kind of cool to see that happen.

So you might have already answered my next question. It sounds

like it's kind of proprietary, this technology. So

that then would lend itself to already addressing

the whole thing of, well, what's to stop me just going in Chat

GPT and setting up some prompts to get the show notes

written for me by Chat GPT? It goes back to, why

did they even start it? Because they tried doing it themselves in chat GBT. And

you're like, there's limitations, at least right now to chat GBT.

You can go ahead and do it, but let's go back to

the average user, right? I have so much going on,

how am I going to spend the time to set up this tool in

chat GBT to do all the things that a tool like cast manager is going

to do? Is that best use of your time? Look,

if you've got the time, great. But then I'll take it back a step further

and go, okay, the three questions that podmaster always ask me was, how do I

get more distribution, how do I grow my audience and how do I monetize? Well,

if most of them aren't even distributing their podcast across all listening

platforms, you think that person is going to spend the time, which they're not doing

already, to distribute their podcast, to go ahead and set up all the

things that are going to take them the time to do in chat GBT and

then wait, you are limited to just one tool, chat

GBT, whereas tool like castmagic, we've got a

UI that's on top of all these other platforms. So if chat GBT

is not the best one and we want to work with

Bard, or was it Genesis or something

else, we're able to plug that in there, then you don't have to know how

the sausage is being made. You just know things are being done for you

and that the team's constantly iterating. And the fact that the team is

iterating at such a fast speed, are you able to do that on chat GBT

by yourself? You're like, oh, I got this set up for what I need it.

But then you still stay in a box. That's kind of what I like about

cast magic, is like, we have a community of 1000 people on slack.

Literally come in there and start asking questions. Learns from

others. So it's another platform that you're able to. What I love about

podcasting is it's a rising tide, raises all ships. So podcasters

talk and they share and so forth, not only prompts, but what tools

you're using. So if you just try doing everything in chat GBT, you're

missing out on efficiency, automation, and

then technology changes for a larger scale.

I think that's a really interesting point. That you've hit on there, actually, in terms

of your slack community, because I'm obviously, I don't contribute as much as I should.

I don't contribute to any slack communities. As much as I should. Who has the

time? But what I do love about it. Is, like you say, you've got these

threads where people are sort of saying. Oh, I tried this and it worked and

it's great. And so unlike Chad GPT, which is

like every six months, every year, you'll get an update from them saying, we've. Just

added this, we've just added that. I love the fact that you guys are updating

this as you're constantly ongoing and you're bringing new updates out

there. You're telling people about these updates, and not only that, but you're giving them

engineering prompts as well that they like. Here's how you can turn

your content into, I don't know, a book, an audiobook and

that sort of stuff. I love what you're doing there. In terms of

that, what sort of feedback have you had from your customers

that have used those new prompts that come along and they're adding

them in? Because obviously you can set your own prompts, save them for future

episodes, but the ones that you're suggesting,

probably lifting the magician's curtain here. But are

your prompts better than the prompts that your customers

are putting in there themselves? And to that end,

should people just sort of like, be following that thread and forgetting their own

engineering? So I guess to answer that, let's take a step back and at least

educate your listener of what is Castmagic. Right? So

Casmagic as a whole is a platform that you take any audio or

video recording, load it in there, and then we've

automated, based on the profile, whether it's a podcast, a

sales call, a coaching call, a meeting set

presets. So that goes into your question that you're asking in terms of

our prompts. So, like, if you are a podcaster, there's 13

presets that in three to five minutes after uploading your

podcast, you're going to get what I tell everyone is

a, it's AI. So always be checking, but add

your own spin. So we're going to create this general ideas for you.

But then the joy is you can go into our tool called magic chat, and

that's basically like chat GBT built in there, and you now

can go ahead and come up with your own prompts. So that is the

magic. If you were to go and said, all right, I'm going to take whatever

cast magic gives me in those 13 outputs at face value,

perfect, you could go do that. You don't want to spend more time, but

we give you not only a community prompts section that you can go

ahead and say, oh, I want this prompt. I've aggregated our slack

community of favorite prompts and put it in a document. So you can go and

put that, and then you can start asking other people, like, this is what I'm

trying to do. So the joy is if you and I use the same

prompt, it's always going to have a different output because our content

is relevant to you and me. So that's what's kind of cool.

Once again, rising tide raises all ships. We can share prompts and

know it's not proprietary because it's

your words that it's using the content for, or whatever that

content you're pulling out. So I think it really opens the door

of how do I automate this for you in three to five minutes? How do

you automate it for yourself? By coming up with your own prompts, saving

those so that every recording gets this prompt

engineered as an output, and then you're able to do what

you want. So now you have no excuse. You literally have no

excuse to not have a blog that's been updated since August 7.

I did it. He went there, I went there, I went there. That's a

joy. It's like back up until

2023. You're right. I've just got to

focus. I've got limited focus, limited bandwidth. But now it's like if

this is literally writing you a newsletter, a blog, a

poem, whatever content you want, you have no excuse not to

have your social post done, to have a blog, to have a newsletter,

to literally start reaching all the little tentacles of your content.

Besides, I want more downloads. More downloads. Stop thinking one trick

pony and start thinking about how do I use automation,

AI, and technology to truly get my message

in front of as many eyes and ears and people as

possible. I love it. And that newsletter thing as well. I mean, that is a

golden opportunity. I mean, it's preaching to the choir, really, but I'm

always trying to hammer it home to podcasters, build your community,

because that way it takes a lot of the pressure off when you're posting on

social media. New episode out this week, nobody cares. Or

fewer than 1% of your target audience is actually on social

media caring about your new episodes. Whereas with the newsletter, you can literally take that

content, can't you, and say, look, this is what we had in the most recent

episode. Here's a summary. I'm emailing you to let you know about it. Here's the

embedded player. Go listen to it now. And that really changes the game,

doesn't it, in terms of building that audience? I guess I would push back

and go like, I think if you play the long game, and that's

what if podcasters are so focused, I need more downloads, more

downloads, more downloads, right. Well, that's still hopefully playing a long

game of like, over time, the compound interest of your

content is truly there, right? So maybe article one

today isn't getting a lot of SEO, but if you're consistent and

every week for 52 weeks you put out, you continue to do it, no

different than your show. That's three years. I mean,

think about the interest that you've now put onto your content. So

maybe a post isn't getting a lot of likes or engagement on

social, whether it's Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, whatever it is.

But that content continues to compound your brand, continues

to be out there, you're getting new eyeballs, you play the algorithms,

whatever it is. But if I'm having this conversation, why

wouldn't I want to put this conversation into all the other formats that I

can? Because who knows if I'm able to reach one person? And it really

depends. Also, this show is about educating podcasters. But what if

it's a self help thing? If you're able to reach just one person and

change their life, and a person comes to you saying, thank you for sharing your

message, you don't care if only three people listen to it.

You reached one person and you changed your life. That's the way you have to

be thinking about it. So if you are taking the time to record

a conversation, make sure that you're putting that in all formats. And once

again, while we're talking technology, AI now allows you to

do that. In terms of different

genres of podcast. So, obviously, this is a

podcast for podcasters trying to bring a bit more sort of insight and education to

new. Podcasters and current podcasters alike. You got true crime,

you got business. You got fiction, you've got sports, you've got

personal journeys, you got all that. Kind of stuff, like a million

categories. I'm exaggerating. There's like 30 in Apple Podcast. But the

point I sort of want to raise here is if I'm somebody that is doing

something that might not lend itself so well to

having show notes made, for example, a fictional podcast,

because obviously what you're then doing is potentially

leaking spoilers of what's in there. So is there

a kind of a methodology to this where

cast magic figures out, okay, this is a fictional podcast.

So these are the sort of show notes we need to create for it, versus

this is a business podcast where it can sort of lend itself to a bit

more insight? I guess what I'm trying to say. Is,

if you're a different kind of podcast across the genres, will the

outputs you get from cast magic be vastly different? So

there was a guy that reached out, and he has a pure, noble true crime

podcast. His day

job once again, his day job is social media and

SEO management and he loved and used cast magic

and uses it. And I'm like, all right, explain this one to me because I'd

be the same. Like, why? And he's like, greg, I spent

all this time researching, spent all this time writing a script, spent all this

time recording. I do not want to spend more time

on the show notes, on the social, the

promotion. If I've got a tool that now is able to do that for

me, why wouldn't I use that instead of I got to

write more? I've got to figure out how to summarize this. No, let this tool

do it for me. And then I can use my brain power of taking it

from the 80% it gets me to the 100%. When I said that,

I'm like, great. Then I know the use cases goes far beyond just an

interview show. It goes into a sports, a true crime or

anything. The specific question on your side is, do we

understand the content that you're putting in there and therefore it's going to be better

or tailored show notes? The answer is

we don't actually provide show notes. Everyone does their show notes

differently. So the 13 outputs for a podcast

preset don't actually have a show notes. Like there's title, there's

descriptions, there's clips and so forth. But everyone does their show notes

differently. So we either piece those things together that we

give you, come up with your own prompt on what show notes would look like

for you, what a social promotion would look like for you based on the

style of content or genre of content you've got. So that is

really the answer. It's like you've got a true crime show and you don't like

the 13 pieces we gave you and you don't feel that you can stitch those

together, come up with your own prompt. And what would show notes look like for

you? What would a blog post look like for you as a

paranormal or a fiction podcast that you're like,

how do I promote? No matter what, you still have to promote a fiction podcast.

So maybe you're not giving away the this is what we talked

about in this episode, but you still need a hook. It's no different

than a 32nd commercial. How do we help you write that? That's the

beauty of this, is that. There is so much ability to

manipulate and mold the outcomes that you want from this

tool just by being really clear with it and saying, this is what I

want, can you give it to me? And unlike Chat GPT

it's pretty much understanding straight away what you're looking to do. It doesn't make

know the amount of times that you put into Chat GPT. Can you summarize

this? And it'll just go off on one about it'll mention

somebody completely unrelated from your episode based

on the transcript you put in there. So that's what I love about it. Hold

on to that point. We're only using. So cast magic is only using your

recording. So if we go back to your previous question, like, if I use chat

GBT, we're only focused on your

recording, whereas if you are putting it as a consumer in chat

GBT, it's very different than the enterprise side that we're using for

our plugins to whatever model we're using. So

that allows you to have less of that quote unquote phantom

content that's coming in there, which becomes a little easier for you to go

like, oh, I know this is only my recording versus do I have to fact

checked it? Like, did it make up something from the outside world,

even though I gave it my transcripts? And it's so accurate as

well. I've joked to you privately that I. Have a client who

has a topic area that I'm just listening to this and it

might as well be french, and I'm literally relying on cast magic to tell me

what it's actually saying. And nine times out of ten, it's one. One.

No, let's be honest about it. 100% of the time, there might have been one

or two times where I've had to slightly tweak things, but other

than that, it's been spot on. So the amount of trust I've put into

it and had to, and it's been brilliant. It's not let me down yet.

So that's a definite endorsement for me for the tool in terms

of the accuracy level that you're getting from the output. So well done, guys. On

that, I was just going to say, obviously this show, we

got a. Range of different types of listeners. We got people that are planning to

do a podcast. We got people that are podcasting now but want to sort of

up their game a bit. We got people that have been going for ages and

ages and ages and just want a nosy on what we're talking about on

here. For the person that is listening right now, what

would they need to be? What does that look like? Somebody that would be the

ideal person to use cast magic for their

podcast production, their podcast marketing, what do they look like to

you? I'd say anyone and everyone. So

if you take cast magic once again, what it started off as two

guys who had a podcast built cast magic for their own podcasting

needs. But then we saw people are, I guess

podcasters are people, and they're doing so much. So we've got meetings we set

up as a preset, we've got coaching, we've got sales. We're constantly

evolving different presets based on you as a consumer,

as a user, as a human, on what your needs are. So whether

it is the person who's like, I'm a hobby podcast and I'm looking to

start this great, this is going to overcome those.

How do I do all these things? How do I get from zero to

one? It's overwhelming. What hosting company do I choose? What

recording platform do I choose? How do I get all my information out there?

Perfect. Simple. Don't overthink it. Cast magic will help you with

repurposing. If it's the person who's been doing this and looking

up your game, well, then, yeah, this is definitely for you. Because if you're looking

up your game, case in point, Neil, get your blog more

consistent. Why don't you have a consistent blog? Right? Twice.

Twice, right. So why aren't you

leveraging technology to help you get your message out there more?

I'm also going to hammer you. Stop thinking just downloads. Like, if you're thinking

monetization and the only way you can monetize is with

downloads, you are missing out as a business opportunity. Whether you're a

true crime show, fine. If you're a true crime show, I get it, you need

people to listen to it. But how you engage with those people could be

on social, can be on a blog, can be a newsletter, and go like, oh,

this was interesting. Or how do you take the behind the scenes?

You've seen how many tv shows have supplementary

content that they're able to throw in there? Like, cast magic can

help you with that if it's a true crime or a fiction show. And then

what was the third person who just wants to know what to do and the

technology, go play around with it. We've got a seven day free

trial. Throw something in there, come do an onboarding call. I'll be

the guy that leads that call. I got resources up to wazoo to try and

help you. But once again, 2023, you have no

excuse not to be using simple technology that

is making your life easier so that you can do more and stop going

like, oh, I only have 50 downloads. Can I start

monetizing that? I'm like, yeah, you could, but if you're thinking just

downloads and cpms or sponsorships, then you're missing

out. If you're thinking, hold on, my newsletter has got 100 people, and my

social has 100 people. My podcast has 100 people. Well, maybe

there's an overlap. Maybe those are different people. Now you can go to

a sponsor and say, hey, I've got 300 people. They're all different,

as opposed to just 100 people for my downloads. And now you've got a package.

Now you're selling yourself as a brand and not just a show.

Now, in full transparency, I have linked to the tool in

the description. This is an affiliate link. I am

endorsing cast magic as a creator. I think it's brilliant. I use it

myself. I use it for client shows. It is definitely going to get you

80% of the way there with your content creation.

It'll certainly save you time with the transcript side of things. Trust me on this.

And it's going to be much more accurate than anything that any tool

will be able to do on platform, including Apple

Podcast.

So now let's talk about some more innovative ways AI

can help with growing our industry. How about breaking language

barriers? AI driven language translation is

bridging the gap between different languages, making podcast

accessible to a global audience. This capability can

facilitate real time translation during live shows or

provide translated transcripts for nonnative

speakers. This actually excites me.

The fact that I could technically say this entire

section in Spanish is very appealing to me.

In fact, let's make that happen. Cast

magic commenso cuando dos personas kedarijan

suspropias empresses respaldadas poor capital de

resco tanian un podcast inotemos

tiempopara administrator nuestra semprezes

volviendo alamisma historia comosies

to virus asiento algo masque un podcast

entonces escocinopudiera seristo entones

podieron crear mahia de lansamiento parasus.

So what about the future implications of AI in

podcasting? Well, while AI's current

applications in podcasting are already quite impressive,

the possibilities for the future are even more exciting.

With advancements in machine learning and of course,

natural language processing developments, we can expect

AI to play an even more significant role in how our

thoughts concede and grow in public.

Imagine needing to know an answer to a specific question

and being someone who's published that answer, then

having your episode clip that's relevant to that query

surfaced for them specifically.

Wow, that's like having your own virtual

consultant. And if v for v or

value for value digital currency was involved,

imagine the possibilities. Now look, I'm a bit ick about

crypto in podcasting at the moment, but it is going to

improve and it will be regulated at some point,

so it can only be a good positive thing in the future.

AI is rapidly transforming the podcasting landscape,

automating processes, enhancing content quality,

and offering personalized experiences. We've

talked about descript or phonic cast

magic. These three tools alone are game

changers for halving your production workflow time.

But as AI tech continues to evolve,

the podcast industry will undoubtedly reap the

benefits, delivering more engaging and immersive content

to your global listeners. So whether you're a seasoned

podmaster or a newbie diYer,

venturing into this world of podcasting for the first time,

embracing AI could significantly improve your

workflow, boost your content quality, and

heighten your listener engagement. The question

is, are you ready to leverage it? And

should you be adding it to your podcast production

workflow? That's a question only you can

answer. And as an OG

podcaster who very much frowns

on cheats and hacks coming into the industry,

I was initially resistant to the idea of

AI moving into podcasting. It's my beloved

traditional space. How dare new tech come in

and sully the reputation of creators within this

space. But I've now become aware of

how it can help me to generate more content that

helps more of my ideal listeners and viewers

like you. So shouldn't we be

embracing this as it helps us to do our jobs more

rapidly and at a higher volume? Again,

that's a question only you can answer for yourself. The podmaster

Pro tip engaging directly with your audience by incorporating

their voices and stories into your podcast

can significantly enhance listener engagement and

loyalty. This strategy not only

diversifies the content of your podcast, but it also builds a

community around it by making your audience feel seen and

heard. Here's an idea of how to effectively incorporate

your listener contributions. Add a voicemail or

voice messaging tool to your website, or

just use a special podcast website builder like

podcast page or podpage links to

both of these tools in the description

global ranking stats to compare your podcast

with it's time once again for those all important

download numbers, which will give you an idea of the

percentage ranking of your podcast compared with

others. If you want to be considered a top 50%

podcaster globally, your podcast episode needs

to be getting 160 downloads within the first

30 days of its release, you'll want

3200 downloads within 30 days of release for

your episode. If you want your podcast to be considered in the top

10% globally, top 5%

7500 downloads top 2%

20,000 downloads and if you want to be a

genuine top 1% podcaster, your latest

episode needs to get 36,000

downloads within the first 30 days of its release.

Well, that's it for this latest episode of the Podmaster

podcast. If you've enjoyed it, please do leave us a review in Apple

Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts

from. Make sure you're following the show, and you can find out more about the

show. And stay in touch at Podmastery Co.

That's podmastery Co. Speak to you next

time. Master is a podknows podcasting

production. Find out more about us at Podnose Co.

UK. That's Podknows.

Co. UK.