Why pay millions of people to celebrity podcast hosts when you can create your own using AI?
Inception Point AI is trying just that as it builds a stable talent for the company to host podcasts and ultimately becomes a broader influencer on social media, literature and more. With the high cost of creating a short-term deal for story podcasts and popular hosts, the idea here is something you can do You can create shows at a minimum cost by leveraging your talents, scaling them up, controlling them (unlike those talents).
“We believe that in the near future half of the people on Earth will become AI. We believe that we are the company that brings those people to life.” CEO Jeanine Wright, who previously was the chief operating officer of podcasting firm Thindery, said it had recently had to reorganize under the changing circumstances of podcasts.
The company can create each episode for less than a dollar, depending on the length and complexity, and attach advertisements for the program. This generally means that if around 20 people hear that episode, we made a profit on that episode without taking it overhead into consideration.
Inception Point AI already has over 5,000 shows on its quiet podcast network, creating more than 3,000 episodes a week. Collectively, the network has seen 10 million downloads since September 2023. It takes about an hour to create an episode, from coming up with an idea to bringing it out in the world.
The company produces podcasts of various levels. The lowest levels include a variety of geographical areas or simple biographies, as well as a higher level of weather reports, including subject area podcasts hosted by any of the roughly 50 AI personalities they have created, including food expert Claire Delish, gardener, nature expert Nigel, and Olik Sports covering Olik Sports.
How do they stack up with human podcasts? “If you still call all AI-generated content AI slops, I think it's probably lazy luddites because there's a lot of really good stuff,” Wright said.
The company has recently been experimenting with video experiments shortening social media profiles for AI personalities in the hopes that they will eventually turn some into influencers. Wright hopes to create thousands of personalities in the near future to see what their personality sticks to.
The team is in the process of navigating ethics around creating these AI personalities as technology advances. Each host is separate from identifying himself as an AI at the top of the episode and for now he is away from having his host invent their own backstory, but that could come. Wright says you can imagine a host chatting with listeners or singing “Happy Birthday,” but there is vigilance about diving deep.
“I'm not going to create a character where anyone has a deep relationship,” said William Corbyn, co-founder and CTO of the company. He added that the company hasn't done hard news at this point, but Wright says that it may be the case in the future.
The idea behind the company came after Corbin accidentally developed a hit podcast during the pandemic, where he reads daily CDC reports, then forked into weather forecasts and other shows. A moment of silence (The actual silence). At the time, they were not using AI.
The company is currently comprised of a team of eight people, with four using content. Podcast topics are selected with the help of AI based on Google and social media trends, and teams can launch five different versions of the show with different titles to see what performs best. Podcasts are often accompanied by a simple SEO search term followed by a title. Whaleso they can be discovered. The sticky show can then be replicated and scaled.
“I might make a pollen podcast that's probably only 50 people listening to, but I'm already profitable for the unit, so I can make 500 pollen report podcasts,” Wright said.
The content team, led by former lifestyle television host and home goods expert Katie Brown, gives each podcast a title, creates a summary of the podcast, and the content is filled out by AI and assigns one of the personalities as the host. Other team members do a final check and add music and sound. The show is regularly spot-checked.
The episode itself is built using AI, with 184 custom AI agents or autonomous software tools, and uses several large language models to build content, including OpenAI, Prperxity, Claude, Gemini, and more. The voices of AI Host podcasts are customized and designed by the team.
Currently, startups are bootstrapped and employees are not yet paid, but the company is immediately seeking external funds.
The team doesn't see these podcasts as replacing human podcasting hosts. There are also plans to work with existing creators to help increase the output.
“I think it's in line with that, and it can delve into areas where human hosts may not want to go that deep,” said co-founder and chief production officer Josh Taylor.
