We Fixed It, You're Welcome - What Even Is a Podcast Anymore?

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Spotify recently rolled out "personal podcasts," letting anyone generate a custom AI show with no creator involved. So what actually counts as a podcast anymore? Aaron, Melissa, and Chino bring in podcasting veteran and Hall of Famer Rob Walch, who has been a mainstay of the podcast industry since 2005, to unpack where AI fits in, where it doesn't, and why human-made shows probably aren't going anywhere. Rob breaks down the real history of podcasting's biggest growth moments, reacts to the rise of AI in podcasting, and explains why trust, once lost, is brutally hard to win back. Our panel also tackles celebrity podcasts, the trouble with unlabeled AI content, and what actually counts as a podcast these days in a rapidly changing landscape. Connect With the Show Subscribe for more deep dives where we fix big business problems with fresh perspectives. • Website – www.wefixeditpod.com • Follow us on: Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/wefixeditpod LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/wefixeditpod YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@WeFixedItPod If you liked this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your friends! Keep listening to find out how we fix companies and put them back better than we found them. Disclaimer A quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We’re here to ask the kinds of questions everyone’s thinking, have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you’re welcome. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. Guest Links Rob Walch's personal podcast: podcast411.com Co-hosts In and Around Podcasting with Elsie Escobar (new episodes every other week) Email: [e-mail] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/podcast411/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to We Fixed It. You're welcome. The show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride, and we try to put them back better than we found them. Podcasting used to be easy to explain, and honestly, it was pretty easy to do. People sat behind a microphone, talked for a while, and then put the show up wherever they could. Pretty simple. These days, if you're at the top of the industry, podcasting is big business. And podcasts are a little harder to define. Some podcasts, are audio only. Some are video only. Some are made for YouTube. Some have exclusive Netflix deals. Some only live on Audible. And let's complicate it even further. There's a new wave of podcasts that aren't even created by creators. So here's what I'm talking about. On May 21st, Spotify announced personal podcasts, a new feature that allows users like you and me to generate entirely customized podcasts with AI. Spotify wants listeners to start creating the content they want, not just consume it. So you want a custom show created just for you and nobody else? Done. Which raises the question we're here to fix. What is a podcast now? What should it be?

If everyone can just go generate their own podcast, what's going to happen to shows like ours? Does we fix it? You're welcome. Need a Netflix deal to stay in the game? We love doing this show for you, so let's figure this out. I hope we can build a compelling case that our show still matters because we're not done fixing everything. We're far from finished. Well, to keep us from going into panic mode about this,

we're going to need someone who brings a long-range perspective about podcasting. Joining Chino, Melissa, and me is Rob Walsh, one of the most respected voices in the podcast industry. Rob was inducted into the podcast Hall of Fame back in 2016. He's the co-author of The Book, Tricks of the Podcasting Masters. He's now the VP of Podcast Relations that Captivate. He's consulted for major shows I'm sure you've listened to, and he's creator and a podcaster in his own right. It's great to have you here, Rob. Did I miss anything?

No, I've been podcasting since two. I've been full-time in the podcast industry since April 1st, 2005. So this has been my full-time job for 21-plus years. Thanks, Rob. You definitely bring that perspective here, and we're glad to have you. If anyone's going to help us figure out what's going on with podcasting, it's you, and we're really happy to have you here. All right, well, let's start with this.

Is podcasting played out to the point where AI can just come in and take over everything? Well, no, actually, it's thriving. According to Edison research, monthly podcast consumption now reaches 58% of Americans age 12 and above. And the U.S., advertising revenue for podcasts, all podcasts, not our show specifically, officially surpassed $2 billion in 2024 and then jumped up from there in 2025. That's serious business. So that means the audience is there, the appetite's there, people want podcasts. Revenue and trend lines are going up.

Hooray. But the challenge is that when a business takes. takes off, success fundamentally changes the medium. These days, you can't just put up a podcast and hope people find it. That's why we're on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else you can get podcasts now, including YouTube, because there are over a billion YouTube viewers who watch podcasts every month. Across the industry, podcast platforms are going video first. We don't have a Netflix deal yet, but if you scroll through Netflix, you'll see an entire category dedicated to podcast programming. So if you have a podcast and you don't do video, you're missing out on a

least some of your audience, but not all of it. According to Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights, 58% of audiences still prefer audio over video. So at least for now, a podcast is still a legitimate podcast if it's audio, video, or both. That's a little complicated, but it's good news for creators. But in other news, AI podcasts on May 21st, Spotify unveiled a feature called Personal Podcasts, which is exactly what it sounds like. With the help of AI, Spotify users can now generate recurring podcasts tailored to anything they want. No creator needed. So we're at this weird crossroads of audio, video, Netflix, AI. What's going to happen to the podcast industry? Because we want to keep bringing you this show. We've got to figure this out quick. Chino, let's start with you. Got

reaction. What did you, what did you think when you first heard about Spotify's announcement about everyone can do their own AI podcast now? You know, when we look back even a year ago, and I use LinkedIn as a great barometer for this, right? You now can really tell when someone is using AI and you kind of refer to this AI slot that we keep getting. And quite frankly, I'm getting tired of it. I've stopped posting on LinkedIn because I didn't want to add to this AI, you know, dumpster fire that is, that is happening, to be frank. And so my gut reaction is, ah, not another AI slot machine because I think, you know, what's great about having podcasts that are content and creator led is the fact that we can hear different voices. I also don't like the sound of a robot. So I was also very curious as to like,

who is going to be sharing the podcast? What is that going to even sound like? Is it going to sound like a robot speaking to me? Because again, personally, I'm tired of the AI slop. So I think it's a great thought in theory. I'm not sure how the execution is going to going to be and what their customer and the demographic of people who are actually going to be using this AI generated podcast. So I have a few questions there that Rob I'd love to talk to you about, but that's my first initial thought. Support for today's episode comes from Square, the business platform that helps sellers become the best in the neighborhood. Whether you're growing your business or just trying to keep up with it, Square knows what you need. You can take payments,

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and set up your business the way it works for you. Yeah, some of those AI voices have gotten pretty good, but we'll go back to that. Rob, AI is everywhere, everything, every industry. You can throw yourself into a tailspin about it. Let's go back. What was the last big innovation in podcasting and the last one before that? Well, there's been a lot of innovations throughout time. Most of them had to do with distribution. If you go back, it was how do you even find a podcast? Because prior to 2005, June of 2005, there were a bunch of podcasts that were starting up, but there was no central directory. And Apple addressed that with iTunes. Two years later, the iPhone came out. That started the whole internet and,

your pocket trend. But I think that, you know, one of the biggest inflection points, what we really saw the biggest change was when iOS 8 came out and made the Apple podcast app native. And people go, what's this purple icon? And how come I can't delete it off my iPhone? That really was really where took off. And I know a lot of people think, oh, the cereal was where podcasting took off. Serial came out a couple months later and was took advantage of that. But if you actually looked a year after iOS 8 came out, all the gains and podcast consumption were iOS. Android gain actually went down. The amount of consumption went down because Google had just killed off. It was one of their original Google ways to get audio. And so they had killed that off in the summer before iOS 8.

So a year later, gains are all on iOS, not on Android. That tells you it was iOS 8. that really podcast app. So that was one big one. Then there was some slow ones over the next 10 years where Spotify came out with the directory. Basically all the major music services. So Deezer, Ghana, Gio Sovon, BoomPlay, all added podcast directories.

So now any place someone listens to audio, they can find podcasts. And that really helped. The IAB coming out with what is a download in 2019, late 2018, having that defined really helped the monetization of podcasting. And so that was a big help. And then shortly after that, some of the tracking pixels and prefixes for tracking as well, helping advertisers feel a little bit better.

So those are the big things that have changed over the time. How you record a podcast has become a lot easier. Right now, Riverside, what we're on, and Streamyard and other services like that. Even Google rooms or Microsoft Teams, none of that was available in 2000. We used Skype and we recorded audio out of Skype on a mixer into a physical device. That was how we recorded 20 plus years ago. So those are what I see as trends. But I will say this, video has always been part of podcasting.

It's been there since the beginning. And some of the biggest podcasts early on were video. Tiki Bar TV, Rocket Boom, Hot for Words, Chad Vader. These were early podcasts that were a video that did really well, but then YouTube won video. And ultimately, while the video was still available, everyone just went to YouTube for video. It's interesting to say that because it seems, you know, that video came somewhere along the way. Like when I was talking about the innovations or the milestones or the evolutions or the evolutions of the podcasting, It seems like video is somewhere in there, you know, the distribution, and then it goes to video, and now we're going video first.

So, but you're saying video was early days, early pioneers. In 2005, 2006, the biggest podcast you looked at Top 200, it was almost 50-50 audio versus video. Wow. And then slowly YouTube one video and iTunes really became and Apple Podcasts became where you went for audio. And it became to the point where when it, if you were, you. you launched a video podcast and an audio, you know, two different RSS feeds, you would see 20 to one audio consumption versus video for your RSS feeds. And that was because people in iTunes that chose audio. And there's just more time in the day to consume audio. Plus, people that

want to consume video going to YouTube. You know I have an opinion, but. Hit it. Well, I think that there are so many operational alignments. And, you know, it really is a very interesting time right now for podcasters and creators because you're really facing where you need to build it like a small media empire or company. I feel for Erin here who helps us sound and look good every week, you've got to manage all the video versions, the clips, the thumbnails, the distribution, the community, analytics, platforms, specific packaging, all of these things to really get to a podcast audience. And I think in today's world, we're seeing that the business side of this is becoming so demanding, including advertising and who you're managed by and how you, you know, if you're

using Riverside, what the tools are you, you are using. So it just keeps climbing and complexity. And so really our creator stories and podcast stories are really starting to be. become more operationally driven. You know, that the shows that win are often the ones that can really do that well. They can publish timeliness that, you know, they repackage themselves. They really make their feeds through multiple channels like YouTube, as well as through, you know, the podcast versions of their universe and ecosystem. So those are the things that we are under pressure to do.

And at the same time, you know, when we think about AI, and podcasting, one thing that I really think about is the audience, right? And if we think about how podcasting has become such a prevalent and really important outlet of information in all arenas. So it is news, it is sports, it is culture, it is people, it's current events, it's fascinating, you know, how-toes, it's fixing things like what we do every, week. It's really an interesting idea that Spotify wants to do this because in a world of unlimited content, I feel like the best listener experience really feels curated. So can they use that in a way to create something that is relevant to me? Yes. Would I still want to hear

our voices, you know, on the podcast? Of course I would and our opinions. But I, I think that there's a way where AI could help to curate, you know, your morning fee, right? This is your morning drive podcast list and it's going to include the top highlights of what happened overnight. It's going to give you a traffic report. It's going to give you your little, you know, I'm all into the murder mystery, you know, so going to give you the serial latest download of, you know, murders first, whatever it might be. And then, you know, it's actually kind of a different way of radio.

You know, like I feel like radio has kind of gone out of style, so to speak. Like I know people used to spend a lot of time in their cars listening to radio and then Sirius came along and satellite radio. And again, it's curating that for you. So I guess I'd love to see AI help that way. I don't know that I actually want to see it. As Chino said, like that AI slot. of like kind of dumbing down a podcast.

You know, I mean, how do I trust what they're saying? I mean, I even am careful about how we use AI when we're prepping a podcast to understand, you know, background content information. So Rob, what are some of your watchouts when you think about like AI being, you know, kind of coming into this space? Because AI is everywhere. So we have to at least acknowledge that. So I put AI kind of in three buckets.

One is the AI tools that can help podcasters, help them research, help them doing the editing. The post-production, there's a new service called People. It's spelled P-I-B-B-B-L. I think it's, I want to get the right URL here, PibbL.net. And that connects to your RSS feed. So when you release an episode, it then goes and it looks at the episode and it figures out what should be some clips and shorts and posts. And it puts posts up on LinkedIn and on blue sky and threads and other social media places that are out there. So that takes care of that post-production work that you've talked about.

So again, AI is a tool to help humans create content. All for it. Thumbs up. Build the data centers as fast as you can. right just not in my backyard but but go ahead and you know that's great then there's the AI slump that's going in and and those are the ones that are being literally in the last month there's been more new podcasts that are AI generated than human generated and that's really sad and these companies are doing it for nefarious in my opinion nefarious reasons they're creating

the content hoping that people will stumble upon it thinking it was something else get a few downloads. They're going to roll out thousands of shows and thousands of shows with hundreds of downloads means hundreds of thousands of downloads and they're going to make some money, which ultimately means the ROI for advertising goes down. So all of us who are trying to make money as humans get a lower CPM. That's no different than people shoplifting and you as a consumer having to pay more. Well, when these AI content comes out, that means we get paid less. I don't like AI slop for that reason. I think that hurt you. the community and I don't like the reasons why people are doing it.

Then the third bucket is what Spotify is doing. Curated for a human, by that human, created content to help them with their day. More time the day to consume audio than anything else. Well, if someone is really busy and they go into Spotify and say, hey, give me the top three highlights on MS Now last night or the top three on Fox and give me the top scores for my, the NFF, or anything that was breaking any trades that happened. And then tell me about the weather for Nashville

and tell me about any concerts that are coming up in the next, you know, that have been announced in the last week. And then you get in the car and you play that and it gives you boom, boom. It's no different than creating some blog lists, you know, in the days. And now you don't have to read it. You can listen to it. And I think that's fine. I think it'll have its place.

but as Spotify said, it's short audio, it's not long audio, it's not going to get you through your commute. And on top of that, you have to pay, you have to be a premium user, and you only have so many tokens. So you can't do a lot of it. So it's not going to take away or steal time from someone else's podcast for the most part. I think it's going to take a little bit of someone's time in the day, the beginning. They're going to listen to that. And then they're going to go off and they're going to listen to a hardcore history or they're going to go listen to whatever, you know, revolutions, podcasts, whatever it is that they were going to listen to anyway. So I'm okay with that.

That's the hope. And you might even, Rod, the way you're saying, you might even build an appetite for a podcast audience and create an AI tool that leaves everyone just a little unsatisfied where now they want the actual content. And it's a stepping stone or it bridges the gap between, you know, a few minutes here and there. But is that, you know, I have to ask is that just because the technology limitations where, you know, compute credits are expensive right now. And, and it's a rudimentary technology compared to where it could be. If you could create long-form content that's fully immersive and engaging and you can do it all day long and the costs are cheap, like, is this just the start of something? Or are they Spotify? Companies, I've said this

before, but companies aren't known for restraint. So is Spotify got to keep it at these small, bite-sized bits of content? Or are they going to say, look, this is a huge success? let's double down and put everything toward this new endeavor. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think it's going to replace. I still believe that most humans are going to want to have a podcast they can talk about. I like the All-In podcast. And I'll talk to some friends about it who will listen to it.

But I can't do that for my own personalized podcast. I can't recommend it to somebody. Here's the thing about AI Slop. No one's going to recommend to their friend to go listen to an AI job. generated podcast because they're going to be embarrassed that they're actually listening to it. So they're not going to want other people to know that, hey, go listen to this history podcast with this voice that sounds just like the voice in the burner ads or the, you know, the guy that's running for mayor in L.A., his ads. Yeah, it's the same voice. Don't worry about it.

You're not going to recommend that. I just, I wouldn't recommend that. I wouldn't recommend a podcast to somebody that didn't have human hosts. Well, I love what you. you're saying there because I do feel like creator and human-led shows survived by leaning into what AI cannot easily fake, right? So that is we have perspective, we have taste, hopefully, relationships, lived experiences and stories that we're sharing and credibility. And Rob, you've kind of brought up this kind of more long view is also useful to look at historically because podcast as a medium has changed and evolved over time. And we've already survived different format shifts, you know, the video, all of these kinds of

things from, you know, download first to YouTube versus, you know, audio first, whatever it might look like. So that is a really, you know, interesting point. And that's probably the winning strategy, right? that we can't necessarily maybe be AI at scale, right, because it's so, you know, it's prevalent everywhere. But we can outperform AI at connection to the audience. And I think that's what's important.

And I think, Chino, you've mentioned it about before, is you can tell AI slop when you see it or hear it or feel it or, you know. And it is missing that connection. and I think that's something that's really important here. Yeah, and kind of going back to this idea of Spotify curating, you know, a little mini newscast for you, right, to start your day. I think, you know, again, as you said, Rob, really hard to share. Like, maybe my interest on a day to day, like, again, I'm in Toronto, Erin, Melissa, Rob, you don't want to hear what the weather is like in Toronto, I don't think. and whatever the musical tastes that I might have based on what I'm already listening to,

I would love that. I wouldn't mind you telling me, hey, this person is in concert, you know, their tickets have gone up. Great way to do that. Here's a pre-sale code, just so you know, like a little five, ten minute. I think that in the same way, if we go back to like Alexa and the Google Play and that being involved, and I remember when it was first introduced, again, it's a language learning model, they're listening to what you're you're talking about. They're learning about what your interests are.

And you can curate kind of, you know, hey, Alexa, tell me about my day, right? Where it's, hey, Spotify, give me a little inside scoop on interest that I'm looking at. Great. I think those smaller tidbytes would be great. But the challenge, I would say, again, going back to longer form or with the human connection is that you can never replace. what we're going to do.

And hot takes are something we do quite often on our podcast. And I have another hot take. I don't think it'll ever really be longer form because then that was what? Replace the news. And you know what? Spotify is one giant somewhere. And sure, radio has died and you've seen a lot of radio stations die. New stations have become very powerful entities on their own.

I don't think they would allow Spotify to take over. what people consume as news. And we've, again, wherever way you lean politically, that is a big piece. I don't think that those stations are going to let go of. And so I think, yes, there's the appetite for AI

that I don't think is really there in terms of the connection and hot takes like that. But also, I think that there are other players and industries that are probably going to cut it a little bit short or get ahead or lobby against Spotify, really curating longer things, not just for podcasters like us who have vested interest in not having AI take over, but for other news sources and other media where they're also looking at AI and saying, please don't take our whole industry as well.

Well, I'm not mad at Spotify for trying it or going into the space. you know, it would be probably irresponsible if they didn't try to make inroads with AI right now. They have to. And, you know, we need them as a platform. If they told all us humans to go away, we're all AI podcasts now, we lose out on a big distribution of our audience. And they need us for now because if they, you know, if they still want shows that have people behind the scenes, putting effort in production and work and thought and engagement into what the shows are like, besides just spinning something up, they need us.

They can't just be all AI all the time. So we have this very interesting symbiotic relationship. But again, I'm not mad at them for creating a new category or furthering a new category called AI podcasts or figuring out what that means because we're all kind of, you know, still figuring AI out. So I'm not putting them on blast by any means. I just think it's really, it's a very interesting heightened moment in time.

And we're seeing pushback in Hollywood, you know, People are saying, well, no, don't replace us with AI actors. And, you know, we'll use CGI and production tools and things like that. But the minute AI becomes the creator, no. But maybe it's happening, Rob. But I'm not hearing the same kind of pushback from podcasts or podcasters of the industry. Not quite yet. The way I'm seeing is kind of a wait and see.

There are some vocal podcasts. There are some podcasters that are about podcasting that are, you know, very the anti- AI slop. And I understand, you know, and I am very anti-AI slop because of the financial impact and other things. Again, most of that doesn't generate any real audience, but it generates enough that it makes a difference. But I'm not worried about them as a competitor to my podcast. I'm more worried about them as driving down the CPM rates that I can generate from my podcast. And I think Spotify calling AI podcast, the personalized podcast, I think is just them playing on the term podcast. It's not a podcast.

And I think we're going to talk about the definition of a podcast. I've had the same definition of a podcast for a long time. It hasn't changed, and it's not going to change. And it's audio or video content delivered by RSS feed that's available in Apple Podcast. And that's been my definition of a podcast from day one, pretty much. and it used to be iTunes, but the reason I say it in Apple Podcasts is because Apple Podcasts directory feeds 400 plus other apps directories. So if you're not in Apple Podcasts, then you're not in Overcast, and you're not in PocketCast, you're not in a bunch of other apps. So if you

really want to be out there fully distributed, which you should be, you should be everywhere, right, your podcast should be everywhere. You mentioned YouTube. You should also be on Rumble. Because if you're on YouTube and it's a big part of your audience and you get three strikes, you're gone and you've lost your audience and I've seen people lose their audience on YouTube a sports podcast that was about Ohio State football, got three strikes in a short period of time and he couldn't get back. Why? Because some Michigan fan was complaining about his podcast. And it was not even a legit complaint. You always want to make sure if your video first, that you also are in Rumble. Now you make your video available via Apple HLS and Spotify video

if your audio first, yeah, have a version of your podcast over on YouTube. YouTube, you can take the RSS feed, drop it there. It'll convert the audio to video and put it in there. And be everywhere, but you want to also be in Ghana, Giosav and BoomPlay and all the other directories, IHeart and Odyssey and Amazon music and so on. Be everywhere. And then you'll be protected. And that's, to me, that's a podcast when you're everywhere.

But when it's just one place, then it's a Netflix show or it's a YouTube video, but it's not a podcast. But does Netflix having an entire podcast category, does that change the definition of a podcast? Or is it just them capitalizing on a moment and a trend and then they'll be onto the next thing? Just them grabbing onto the name. Yeah. And it's just a few, I mean, it's just a few podcasts, right? It's only really big ones. Yeah.

I mean, the reality is in podcasting, if you take the top 200 podcasts, the quote unquote podcast that are in YouTube, take them out of the picture, the majority of podcasts are lucky to get two to three percent of their audience over on YouTube. Interesting. Yeah. No, well, I was just also, you know,

again, going back to the audience, that's always my perspective, is like thinking about that. But how do they know now, who to trust is my question, Rob, because, like, even though Spotify's new personal podcast feature shows, you know, just a really quick snapshot, synthetic, individualized audio. But this could scale and it

can become something bigger. How does the audience trust and know, you know, the differentiating signals that are needed? I mean, obviously human connection is one of them, but, you know, we've seen it. They have AI generated actors and actresses and songwriters and songs and things like that. And so now they have podcasts. So do we think that there's going to be a point where this trust won't matter? There was a survey on one company did survey Smith, oh, Smyth OS, or SmithOS,

I already pronounce it. And they found 52% of people, users disengaged from content once they found out it was AI. So, you know, having it labeled correctly is one thing. So people go into it knowing, but if it's not labeled

and people realize, hey, what I'm watching or listening to is AI, they tend to disengage. you've probably all seen the videos where this big Rottweiler or big dog is there and a little chihuahua comes up and barks at it and scares it and jumps up on the couch. And then as you realize, hey, just jump through the sofa. That's not real. It's AI and you move on to the next thing. You're like, oh, that would have been cute if it was real, but because it's AI, I don't really care about it. Or there's the, you know, they'll have the heartwarming one where someone reaches into a well and pulls a kid out and saves this kid.

and then you find out, oh, it's AI. And you're like, well, okay, I want a heartwarming story to be real. Right. You want that, and you ask how does the trust come? It's earned. It's earned over time. It's not given. It's earned over time.

And AI especially is known for hallucinations. AI will just make up facts. You can, any of the AIs, you can ask it something, and it'll have some facts come out. And every now and then you'll find one that's wrong, and you'll call it on it. And you go, where did that come from? And then it'll go, ah, I don't know. I found it somewhere. Maybe I was wrong.

And it'll just, you'd call it out. And I just made that out. It's basically what it says. Well, yes, for sure. There's hallucinations. And that probably would happen in an audio podcast too that you generate for yourself. It'll just start going off in a direction that you didn't expect. But you said trust over time, we, you know, as our own show, we've tried,

worked very hard to earn audience trust over time and to grow one listener at a time. and go up the charts and grow our user base and get to distribution and all those things. But, you know, in addition to all the competitive, we'll call them competitors or replacements or it's something to do in between shows. But you also have, it's one of the only industries where a celebrity, a known entity can just kind of walk in and say, I do this now, you know, and they take a bite out of everything too. So they can come in and say, I'm a surgeon now or I'm an attorney now. They can say, oh, I'm a podcaster now.

and people throw money at them. So that's another complexity here. Do know this. Just go to your celebrity doesn't mean your podcast is going to be successful. I've seen many celebrity podcasts that well underperformed where I thought they would have. And, you know, people are like, oh, well, Joe Rogan's biggest podcast because he was a celebrity. Well, when Joe started, he was barely a celebrity, and he's gone up against other A-list celebrities and just kick their, butt, right? So, you know, no celebrity is done what Joe's done. Nobody, everybody is an order of

magnitude below Joe. And there's a lot of A-list celebrities that have tried podcasting and completely failed at it. The ones that have done well were in it for the long haul. And that's what Joe was. And that's what others have been. You know, the Kelsey's brothers, their podcast was going along. And it was doing well. But it didn't go to the next level until he brought a bigger celebrity into his family, Taylor Swift, right? And that helped that take off. And, you know, so there is some celebrity thing. But the thing is, if the Kelsey Brothers podcast wasn't good, it would have been a spike,

not a plateau. A lot of celebrities I've seen over the years, I don't want to name names, but there's been some that I would call borderline A-list, B-list, definitely B-listers that couldn't get more than 2,000 downloads an episode. And, and I was just like, man, I would have thought this person would have. done better. And they just, when you listen to the show, you could tell it was something someone told them to do, not something they wanted to do. And I think this goes back into the building the trust and organically growing your audience base, right? Like for us, Aaron, sure. So a celebrity there,

make as much money as you can so that it actually hopefully drives up the sales and, you know, the ad buys on podcasts. And it helps that versus when we look at the AI side of things, I think Rob, you talk about kind of, you know, thousands of little tiny things. And yes, people lose interest the second you realize that it's AI legally. You need to start sharing that, you know, this content is AI, which is great. And it'll be helpful. And where I'm curious with Spotify and their AI is how soon do they share that? Is that at the beginning of the Spotify AI or will be at the end because what we don't want to happen is for them to, you know, maybe it is only 10 seconds, but if there's 100,000s of that and, you know, you're...

The personal podcast that Spotify rolled out and announced and they rolled out this month, that only goes into your playlist. Nobody else sees it. So you know it's AI because you had to give it the prompts. And that's another thing why that makes. not be as big as people think. People are just lazy. They're not going to take the time to learn to put the prompts in to create it.

They still have to do that beyond the tokens and having to be a premium user. So that's their. YouTube just announced on their side that if it's AI generated content, they now have AI bots looking at the content. And if they determine it's AI generated content, they are labeling it AI content right below for long form content, right below the play button and above. the description and for short form content they're floating a watermark on it saying it's

a i generated um and you can fight that but you don't have to go through the appeals process you can go into your studio and in youtube and say no this wasn't a i generated unless you used youtube's tools to create the a i generate content in which case they super glue that and so kudos to to YouTube, they're doing the right thing. They're saying, hey, we know this was AI generated content. You used our tools. You cannot take that tag off. And if it's in the metadata tags, that's saying that it was AI generated,

it'll also put super glue that tag in there. But unfortunately, people, now that they know that's how they're going to look for it, people that want to get around it or just put in the tags, this is human generated content, HGC. This episode is brought to you by L'Oréal, Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why L'Oreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of its brands championing diversity.

With 25,000 professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide and 54% of leading positions held by women, diversity is a strength that helps L'Oreal Group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit L'Oreal.com to learn more. Well, I think that building that trust layer, like you say, Rob, is really important. And I think that's something for, you know, podcasters to think about, like, how do you build a trust layer into your show? Because any AI generated audio that then becomes something that is more common or can be used in other places just does need to have some sort of visible trust cues just like what YouTube is doing. And what you see on social media, you know,

when it says this looks to be an AI generated video clip or whatever and allow the person to kind of source that credibility and kind of feel a stronger connection, a decision making of whether I'm going to, you know, absorb that and listen to the rest of the podcast or I'm going to, you know, or I'm going to stop watching that video because, you know, I'm not interested in AI generated videos. You could be like me. I like to go in and block them. I don't, I just, it just bothers me that there's so many of those out there. But it does help to lessen the confusion, but also it gives you more confidence that you know what's real out there. And I guess my, I wonder still, like with all this AI generated information that's going to be blasted at us,

you know, is that trust is so important in our world today. And it seems to me that that continues to be kind of the foundational basics for a podcast, is that you need to be able to share. Like when, you know, I loved what you said, Rob, that there are three, you know, AI buckets, right, for podcasters. And I think that's great to share that, right? I think that transparency is necessary. But I also think where it gets messed up is when people have other reasons and they

don't share it and then it goes out there. So I'm glad that like the Spotify is kind of dipping their toe in the water. It's not a full-fledged, you know, they're just dropping a bunch of podcasts as more personalized. But you feel like that's what's going to be coming later, right? And I think a lot of the aggregator apps and places where you consume podcasts, I mean, on YouTube just announced they're doing it. I think all of them, Apple eventually and others are going to start scanning and saying, is AI generated content if you don't disclose it. There's a couple of apps have already, you know, have that available. I think Fountain App or one of the other apps recently announced they're going to do that as well.

But I think ultimately the apps that do it best are going to be the ones that get used the most, right? Because it's going to be a better user experience. So I think all of them have to do it and the ones that do it best will thrive. It goes back to my original point, too, of, you know, when do they disclose? close that it's AI. I didn't think it should be something done at the beginning so that if you are someone that has no tolerance for any AI slop, you're able to opt out. And I think that is something in terms of like a fix for Spotify to look at so that as you shared Rob, they're doing it best so that people know exactly what they're consuming versus bad actors where they're doing it blindly and

you know, literally losing the trust from their audience. I think absolutely. advertisers are going to step in at some point too and say, hey, on their IOs, they're going to say, you know, we only want 100% HGC, human generated content. That's all we want. And if, you know, and if there's a certain percent, if we audit and we find a certain percent went to AI content, you always back, you know, would claw back some money. I think advertisers will ultimately look at it and go, hey, the ROI is not there. Because it's not a real audience. It's not a trust. There's no to trust, right? And now as trustful audiences make, purchases. And advertisers know that. And so I think advertisers are going to have to step up at some point and really push the industry as well. I hope so. But if you can make a thousand AI-generated podcasts a minute for every, you know, creator-generated podcast, are we going to have to flip it and start labeling what's creator-generated or what's human-generated and just assume everything else we're engaging with is AI? Are we going to reach that point? I think we should as podcasters. put that in there in our author tag and say this is human generated content. Yeah. And just start

putting it out there. So then when people start searching for that, you'll show up. Yeah. It's really tricky. There's a like a news roundup website that I go to and they clearly have at least one or two AI authors. And they have real authors too. You know, they have real articles and things, but they have one or two AI authors to sprinkle through their columnists and they but you can you just know so having some kind of distinction to be able to guide through it if they owned it and said look this this this per this is a persona this is AI these are are real like you can feel about that however we however you want and you could say I'm out of here that you know you crossed the line for me you could say well I'm only going to engage with the human side of this you can say who cares AI bring it on whatever

everyone's going to feel feel however they feel about it but having but they didn't for me it's challenging because they don't make that distinction. They just kind of present them like another columnist. But you say put guardrails and precautions on this so that you at least know, I mean, you know if you're going to magic up a podcast for yourself with your name in it and it's got affirmations for yourself and, you know, your own sports team scores with the way you feel about them, you know it's AI. Like there's no getting around that. There's no hamster running that for you. And so we know that for what it is. But there's those kind of unfortunate in gray areas that we're in where it's, you know, you just, you don't, it's uncanny. You don't

quite know what you're, what you're engaging with. Maybe you would feel about it. You would distance yourself from it if you knew there was AI. And there's these, like you said, Rob, maybe it's going to come from advertisers. Maybe it's going to come from within the industry, setting their own standards and creating some unified front against, you know, this type of, the, the three buckets you talked about. Maybe we create the level of acceptability is one bucket, but not the other two. You know what I mean? Like we're not there yet. Yeah, I also think that we, our podcast is a great example of doubling down. What we should do is continue to double down on community and relationships. You know, one of the things that guests have always said to us that

they love about coming on to our podcast is it feels like a conversation. It feels like we're sitting down and having a discussion, having a cup of coffee with someone that we're learning from, that we might trust. And that is the type of content that I think is really touches a person, right, a human, that kind of relationship there. And I think that even though AI can help the medium, it can help in different ways. It can't replace that. And I do feel that you can tell, like you said, Aaron, you can tell when it's AI generated,

even when you prompt it to use a human engaging script, it ends up being way too formal. It doesn't sound like all of us. We're talking over each other, so that's not AI generated. That's just how we do it. We have technical difficulties a lot of the times, you know, things happen. And so I feel like having those spontaneity and having those types of things that are in our podcast and having the content be really about servicing the audience is really something that is important

and something that we have to continue to really strive for because the more we do that, we will grow loyalty, we'll have better word of mouth, which will, you know, when we started, I remember asking Aaron like, who care, who would care about what we have to say, right? And then look at us, you know, two seasons, three seasons later, you know, to be in the top five is amazing. But it helps to build more of like a stronger mode around AI generated alternatives when you have a strong foundation of trust, community, and relationship. And so I really feel like that's what's important for podcasters today.

And I think just leaning on that too, going back to your point to Rob about, you know, people can be a little bit lazy sometimes, right? Maybe you put the prompt in at the beginning to test out Spotify podcast AI. Cool. I probably will just to see what it's about to look at our competitors. But there needs to be an off ramp. I think that they also need to build in some form of a system or guardrail what people can say, okay, put this in here. Can you remind me that this is AI or, you know what?

Refresh maybe the topics because as we also know with AI, the challenge of the whole system and the language learning model is that it spews what you've given it to you. And so as people, by nature, we're curious. We want to explore maybe different things. And I think that is actually a huge miss for Spotify if they don't put a check and balance in place to allow people to discover outside of what they initially shared.

Because otherwise, we've all been there. You might have prompted something in AI on Netflix and you just keep getting the same, the exact same movie. And you're like, I want to try a horror this time. I'm not really into romance this week, right? And so, you know, for Spotify and anyone looking at AI's, putting those guardrails in place to get people to explore other outside of what they've initially prompted. Yeah.

Now, I love that you said that, you know, because I picture being at a restaurant where you order something and you really enjoy it and you tell everyone, I love it. And then the next day they bring you the same thing and they say, well, you love this. And then the next day they bring you the same thing. you're going to want to explore other options. And you're going to, somewhere you're going to want to go off menu and go to a different restaurant. So, you know, we're probably going to find that familiarity with AI generated content is good. You gave me everything I wanted.

Now I want something else. You know, I'm over it. So we'll see. But we do have to fix this. We have to fight. Well, I think we made a case for our own relevancy. You know, we're not done yet. We want to keep this going.

So Spotify, you know, we're partnered with you one way or another. We don't replace your human creators with AI. Maybe you've created a category. Maybe you've created this viable little on-ramp to podcast discovery for your creators. And you probably keep it to, what we're saying is keep it to short form, bite-sized, digestible content, and keep it to those personal engagement things. maybe we're never going to cover your sports scores and your, you know, your meditation practice in the same podcast.

It's not our show. So to create those for your drive time. But then when you're done, roll over to a show like ours because we've got a lot to share and we're going to create a communal experience. You're just not going to get from AI as good as it is and as good as it can be because this technology is going to keep evolving. Those voices are pretty, they're pretty good. They're going to keep getting better.

The capability is going to get better. The technology is going to get cheaper. it'll be easier to generate higher quality content with AI. Don't get rid of shows like ours because we, you know, at the end of the day, listeners are going to want what we have to offer, probably more than the AI side of things. Well, I don't know if we widen our definition of podcast to whatever Netflix does, to whatever videos do to if they make a movie that's a podcast. Is that a podcast?

I don't know. We'll just have to watch what it is. But Rob, I like your definition of, you know, the Apple podcast. because that is the RSS feed. That's the peak point of distribution for everywhere else. So if you're there, you're a podcast. If you're everywhere else, your podcast is the name,

podcast adjacent, and you're maybe leveraging the name, the category for your own purposes. And let's just keep being creators and putting out great, you know, great interesting content that only we can come up with. If we do that,

Melissa, did we fix it? At least more better than we started this? I think we've identified fixes. And I think that's what's really important is because this is obviously very new. AI is not. And so I really love what you've shared. Erin, I think those are definitely on target.

I think we want to continue to build community and trust. And I think that, you know, the relevancy of podcasts are that it's these unfiltered conversations and opinions. And I love that. And I think that I, you know, I'm a CX champion. and I know that personalization and responsiveness is the number one thing in CX. But what I fear with something like the Spotify podcast is that you're personalized to your biases and in your prompts, like the way you're, you know, like you may say, I only want to hear Fox News updates, right?

Which is only one side of the story. As well as if you just say, I only want to hear from the BBC. That's only one side of the story as well. So to me, I think there should be some safeguards there or recommendations, right? Like, hey, you know, yesterday morning I gave you the perspective from CBS. Today I'd love to give you the perspective from NBC, whatever. So I do think that there is ways for us to engage with the tool in very smart ways, which Rob, you've already shared.

And I love that. and I think we should go full throttle in that aspect. But I think podcast as a medium, and I just love what we're able to do every week is talk about fixing a hot topic. I think those podcasts aren't going to go away. All right. Thanks, Melissa. Chino, did we fix it?

I think we gave some suggestions on fixing it, right? You know, I think one of the big themes here is trust. and human-generated content is what can help organically build trust. I think advertisers, I think other industries will need to look at it from a, you know, do you want to put your money in places that people are less engaged? And I think that will be a guardrail. There needs to be an off-ramp so that people can explore new content and pieces of information. And I do think that if we can maybe start a pledge, maybe we're starting it here on the Fixit podcast, you know, we should all have a human generated content as part of our messaging and really double down on that because that is what builds a trust, right?

We can all talk to a robot. I've watched a video of a robot kicking a kid. I wouldn't put my kid with a robot. So we really do be to double down on the HGCs. Sounds good. I'll take that pledge. Thanks, Chino. Rob, last word. Did we get to stick around? Do we fix the situation a little bit better? I think the fixes are coming. I think we identified the fixes. I think if you're a podcaster, you should one of the fixes is keep on podcasting. And if you're someone who's thinking about podcasting, start podcasting. I think that's. part of the fix. This is a strange thing, but people like other people. And people like analog,

right? The vinyl records, most people have bought music in the last year, probably bought vinyl, not digital. So people like analog, people like other people, I think there's still a place for humans to entertain other humans. And I don't think that's going away anytime soon. Oh, thank goodness. Well, that's going to do it for this episode. And we fixed it. You're welcome. Before we wind down, I want to give a big thanks to podcasting expert Rob Walsh for being here with us. Rob, how can we all keep up with what you're doing? You can go to podcast 411.com. That's my personal podcast, but you can also find me an in and around podcasting with my co-host, Elsie Escobar every other week.

We release new episodes. And you can reach out to me. I always make myself very available. Rob. Walsch, W-A-L-C-H at global.com. So, Rob. dot walsh at global. com.

Fantastic. Thanks again, Rob. Thank you, Chino. Thank you, Melissa. If AI doesn't come for our show in the next week, we will be back with a new episode created by humans, aka us.

You've got a week till then. So if you decide to try Spotify's personal podcast feature, let us know what you think. We're interested. You can reach us at We FixedItPod.com. If you'd rather leave the podcast to us, great.

You can catch our past. episodes on our website to we fixeditpod.com. If you love our show and you haven't told enough people about it yet, go do it now. Tell enough people and whether you call it a podcast or not, we might just get that Netflix deal. And we will see you next time. We hope you enjoyed this episode of We Fixed It, you're welcome. We go into every episode somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. All trademarks, IP, and brand elements remain property of their respective owners.