Stephen Bartlett said the use of AI is more important to his business than anything else. It was about translating podcasts into other languages.
“There’s nothing more important than what we’ve done for business than translation, and rightly so,” Bartlett told the World Economic Forum’s “What It Takes to Build” panel in Davos on Tuesday.
The British entrepreneur and host of the podcast The Diary of a CEO sat down with Jessica Lessin, CEO of The Information, along with former Salesforce co-CEO and Meta CTO Brett Taylor.
Bartlett said using AI tools to translate podcasts was initially an “expensive experiment.” The problem he was trying to solve, he said, was reaching an untapped market that didn’t speak English.
“With English alone, you can reach about 10% of the world,” Bartlett added.
There were also technical challenges. Bartlett said some languages use long words, so a three-hour English conversation would be significantly longer when translated, putting the audio and video at risk of getting out of sync.
Two years ago, Bartlett announced on LinkedIn that Diary of a CEO hired a full-time data scientist to help with a technological advancement that would allow it to use AI to translate podcasts into “any language.”
Bartlett did not elaborate on exactly how AI translation would work, either at Davos or in his LinkedIn post. But today, he said, the video shows Bartlett speaking Spanish in a voice similar to his own, a change that greatly expands the podcast’s reach.
“This month, 28% of my audience is Spanish,” he said, adding that Spanish speakers now have access to interviews with some of the world’s most high-profile podcast guests, citing his own interview with former first lady Michelle Obama as an example.
Other guests on the podcast include former Vice President Kamala Harris, Simon Cowell, and psychologist Jordan Peterson.
Spotify said in its 2025 Wrapped press release in December 2025 that “The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett” is the second most listened to podcast on its platform worldwide, behind “The Joe Rogan Experience.” On YouTube, Bartlett’s podcast channel has 14.5 million subscribers.
