A startup with just eight employees is using artificial intelligence to generate 3,000 podcast episodes each week. The company, Inception Point AI, has already published over 175,000 AI-generated episodes on platforms like Spotify and Apple. Tess Patton reports for The Wrap that the company’s podcast network, Quiet Please, has achieved 12 million downloads and attracted 400,000 subscribers.
Inception Point AI’s strategy focuses on quantity and niche audiences. CEO Jeanine Wright explained that at a cost of only one dollar per episode, the company can produce content for topics that were previously not commercially viable. To be profitable, an episode needs only 20 listeners. Revenue is generated through programmatic ads. The content ranges from local weather reports to biographical series on figures like Anna Wintour and topical episodes about current events.
The production process is highly automated. AI models scan the internet for topic ideas. An employee then selects a topic and pairs it with one of over 120 different AI-generated host personalities. A complete episode can be generated in about an hour. The company says it gives these AI hosts backstories and flaws to make them sound more human. However, the source article describes their voices as monotonous and their rhythm as robotic.
Due to the high volume of content, human oversight is limited. According to Wright, episodes on sensitive topics like politics undergo a human review to ensure factual accuracy and appropriate tone. The company also uses multiple large language models to cross-reference information and reduce the risk of AI models inventing facts. Wright acknowledged that AI still struggles to get the tone right for certain subjects.
While Inception Point AI’s CEO believes AI will become a standard tool for content creation, others in the podcasting industry are skeptical. They argue that AI cannot replicate the personality, humor, and improvisation of a human host. Joe Caporoso, a media company president, sees a role for AI in formulaic parts of a show, such as ad reads, but not for full-length episodes.
Major podcasting platforms do not currently require creators to disclose the use of AI. Inception Point AI states that all its episodes include a disclosure at the beginning announcing that the host is an AI. The company plans to expand into video and create thousands of additional AI personalities in the future.
