Artificial intelligence and podcasts are two very familiar topics in B2B marketing. Now, the two are coming together. The next time you don your headphones, can you be one hundred percent sure it’s a human you’re listening to? AI is taking on the role of podcast host—but brands would do well to listen to our advice for a better human-fronted experience.
Hosting is an artform
Today’s 500 million podcast listeners have some 3 million podcasts to choose from. With so much choice, listeners have no qualms about switching off and tuning in to something else if it’s not for them. An episode will see up to 35% of its listeners drop off within the first five minutes.[Source] One of the likely reasons for this is simply not connecting with the podcast’s host.
Being a great podcast host is an art. A host needs to keep conversations flowing, make guests feel comfortable, and engage listeners throughout the episode. With guests, creating a welcoming atmosphere and encouraging open dialogue helps draw out interesting insights and stories, making each episode feel personal and relatable.
But it’s also about building strong rapport with co-hosts. A great host knows how to work with their partners to create a natural dynamic full of the kind of engaging banter and quirky conversational pivots that make the podcast an experience people want to subscribe and return to.
With this in mind, if your business chooses to front a podcast, then your choice of host matters. Their voice is an extension of your brand voice, with important nuances gleaned from the choice of gender, age and accent.
Tone of voice speaks volumes
The sound of a person’s voice plays a crucial role in shaping how we perceive them. Subtle cues like the pace, intonation and warmth of speech can reveal emotions, such as friendliness or brusqueness, allowing us to form judgments about someone’s character or intentions.
Just like with individuals, a brand’s voice can convey trust, warmth or authority, which shapes consumer attitudes and behaviour. If the voice is too cold or overly formal, it can create distance—but a calm and steady voice can evoke feelings of comfort, suggesting a relatable and trustworthy brand.
The easy way out
A good podcast takes time and money. A well-known host and high-quality production demands the latter.
It’s no surprise then that LLM Notebook’s revolutionary podcast hosts have pricked peoples’ ears. The hosts are a friendly, knowledgeable pair passionate about any topic you give them, as the nameless American man and woman chat casually. They make complex subjects easy to understand, feeling approachable and informative at the same time. The catch? They don’t exist.
Created by artificial intelligence thanks to Google’s wizardry, LLM Notebook is designed to be a showcase of what’s possible. Taking any webpage or document you give it, it will turn the information into a riveting podcast episode in minutes for free, complete with human-like adlibs, stutters and bursts of laughter. Buried within your 2024 Spotify Wrapped, there’s actually an LLM Notebook podcast available to listen to, dedicated to your personal listening habits last year.
Want to hear what LLM Notebook’s AI podcast hosts sound like? We ran part of this blog through the tool and got this episode.
Taking this technology even further, Jellypod is billing itself as the first customisable AI podcast studio—complete with the option to create your host’s AI-enabled voice. There are just shy of 100 AI voices to choose from; take your pick from Gen Z Indian males, softly-spoken valley girls, relatable Scots and easy-going Irish. Pick a voice and add your host’s backstory, and Jellypod will add additional nuances to better reflect their personality. You can also clone your own voice before Jellypod does the talking for you.
Listen to this example of a Jellypod podcast episode based on this blog—with Jack, the friendly AI-generated middle-aged Australian as our host.
Are you sitting comfortably?
For brands tempted to opt for an AI host, take heed. As good as they can be, AI still can’t capture the true essence of what it is to be human—and the attempt to do so can make for an uncomfortable podcast experience.
The uncanny valley hypothesis refers to the discomfort people experience when encountering humanoid robots or digital representations of humans that closely resemble real humans but still have subtle, unsettling imperfections.
This phenomenon occurs when the appearance, voice, or behaviour of these entities falls just short of convincingly mimicking human traits. We’re talking awkward movements, unnatural facial expressions or voice tones that sound almost human—but not quite.
In the case of audio, robotic or synthetic voices that closely replicate human speech but lack emotional depth or natural intonation can create a sense of unease. The closer these entities come to human likeness, whether visually or audibly, the more pronounced the discomfort becomes. This feeling challenges our instinctual desire for authenticity and empathy, leading to negative connotations like distrust, derision, revulsion or fear.
A better way of podcasting
If podcasts are the way forward for your content, it pays to do it properly or not at all. Episodes of dull Q&As and uninspired, self-promoting spiel quickly sink to the bottom when there is so much genuinely entertaining, educating and interesting content to be found.
- When it comes to choosing a host, either invest in a professional voice artist or an industry face, or hunt for natural talent from within your business. It’s fair to say that this may not be your top dog; put engagement before egos.
- Anyone can churn out AI-written scripts. But only you can tell the true stories of your company and its customers. The funny anecdotes, the surprise solutions, the lessons learned, all told by real people that listeners can relate to.
- Launch a short season (e.g. 3-6 episodes) to test the format, style, and content. Prioritise high-quality audio and production, even if it means fewer episodes. A focused approach allows for better refinement of the podcast before scaling.
- Review audience feedback, download numbers, engagement rates, and listener retention after each episode. Then, use the insights to refine your approach, tweak content, and improve production quality—and see if you have a case for investing in more expensive hosting talent if needed. Fail fast by making necessary adjustments early to save time and resources in future seasons.
Listen to Cremarc’s new podcast
We’ve just launched our first agency podcast, Generation Marketing—with real-life hosts. Watch and listen here: https://www.cremarc.com/podcasts/
Interested in creating your own podcast? We can help with that. Get in touch!
