Enhancing Your Podcasting Game with Artificial Intelligence: Tips and Tools

Welcome to another YourTechReport video. Today, we’re going to be talking all about artificial intelligence and how it can be used in podcasting.

Welcome back. If you aren’t already subscribed to the channel, what are you waiting for? Hit that subscribe button down below and don’t forget that notification bell so you can be notified when we’ve got a brand new video just like this to share with you. I am Marc Aflalo, and there is no denying that podcasting is going a little crazy. There’s a podcast for absolutely everything out there. Now, Spotify, they’re claiming alone that they have 4.7 million, while Apple says 2.5, and those are just on their platforms.

Now, according to Podcasting Index, there’s an estimated 4,116,890 podcast episodes alone. So, more and more, as people are starting their own podcasting, I get a lot of calls because of my experience in broadcasting about how to set things up, what microphone do you use, what audio interface, content, ideas, how to start a podcast, where should I host it, and everything that goes along with it. So today, I wanted to address one of the most frequently asked questions that I’ve been getting lately, and no surprise, it’s artificial intelligence in podcasting. How can we use it? So let’s break this down into three specific areas, and we’re going to start with content.

With the introduction of tools like ChatGPT, Bing AI, creating new content and coming up with ideas is no longer a stumbling block. Writer’s block? Gone, a thing of the past because with a simple query like, “Give me ideas for a podcast about widgets,” you’ll get hundreds if not more ideas, and you can even drill down deeper and have AI even write things down for you, summarize it, point form, et cetera, et cetera. Now, don’t expect to read a script that ChatGPT spits out word for word. You want to make it yours, and you want to make sure that it comes out the way you would actually present it. You can generate titles, SEO-friendly descriptions, keywords, you could even have it break down an episode or write show notes. So content is definitely number one on my list of things that people have been asking me about. Let’s move on.

Transcription. Transcription, I think, gets a pretty bad wrap because it hasn’t always been that great, but nowadays, transcription is super important. Think of it as taking all that spoken word content and putting it into lovely SEO-ready words that can be spidered by any web browser out there, any search engine. It takes every word that came out of your mouth and makes that search engine-optimized content. You can put that up in your blog. You can add it to your podcast feed, let alone, of course, the accessibility implications because people who are deaf or hard of hearing can now read what you’re doing. I use transcription for many, many things. I could read through the script and see what I said. I could find quotes that are good and actually use those for social media promotion. I could censor out swear words. I could find those a lot easier because I do that a lot in podcast editing. I need to make a clean version of one or another episode. I could find those words a lot easier without having to listen to an hour-long content over time.

And of course, there are plenty of services out there to let you do that. The one that I use for AI transcription is Otter.ai. There are free levels, there are paid levels. It’s great. It’s fast. It allows me to create a pretty near instant transcription of what we just recorded. Think of AI tools these days like Microsoft’s Copilot. With a transcription in OneDrive, it can actually search through that content when it’s putting together other things. So having a transcription of what you’ve said in spoken word is super, super valuable. Now, when it comes to real human touch required transcription, broadcast quality, I use a service called rev.com. They’re pretty good. They have a 99.9% accuracy guarantee. I definitely have to review stuff after it’s been transcribed just to make sure there are always nuances in spelling and people don’t always speak the same speed and as clear as someone else. Lots of little things that you can do. And transcription is definitely number two on my list when it comes to what people ask me about in podcasting.

Number three, editing and post-production. Wait, AI can help you in post-production? Absolutely. Have you heard of services like Descript? What about Adobe Podcasts? These are services that can help you throughout the entire process. Let’s say you want to clean up audio and you don’t have the expertise to properly reduce the noise in the background or get rid of an annoying dog that might be barking or a bus that drives by. You can actually use services like Adobe Podcast to clean up entire interviews, upload it, and it’ll spit it back. Now, it’s not always perfect. Sometimes it does skew the voice a bit, but for the majority of the time, it spits back a pretty usable and pretty good representation of what you’re trying to get through in the first place.

Now, there are services that’ll actually mix the audio for you. It’ll balance the levels. It’ll even splice different takes together for you so you don’t have to lift a finger. Yes, we’re basically getting to the point where AI is getting so good, it can edit an entire podcast without you touching a thing. But honestly, all these things I’m recommending here are just enhancements to your process, tools you can use to make a better product at the end of the day, whether you’re an editor editing a podcast, a podcast to yourself and you’re creating content, AI can actually help you if you choose to embrace it and use it wisely.

Before I let you go, I’ve got to throw out one disclaimer. You need to use AI with your head. Like with any new technology, you have to consider the ethical implications and remember that relying too much on AI could actually work against you. Your creative muscle, your brain, could turn into mush, or more seriously, it might make you a bit lazier and take your own personal twist on things out of the equation, and suddenly, your content will end up being more robotic because AI is still not a person. Use AI smart. Let it be an enhancement to what you’re doing and a catalyst to make better content. And if you use it in a way that your audience might know, tell them. Be honest so it doesn’t blow back on you, and the comment feed starts filling up with, “Oh, you didn’t actually do this.”

So there you have it, using AI to improve your podcasting game. From automated transcriptions, more personalized content, to automated editing tools, there are lots of exciting possibilities, and honestly, we are just scraping the surface. Do you have any tips on how you use AI in podcasting? Let me know with a comment down below because this is one of those videos that are going to be updated time and time again, especially as new things are announced. Thank you for watching. Again, if you’re not already subscribed to the channel, hit that subscribe button down below and that notification bell and we will catch you on the next episode.

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