AI is no longer something we’re preparing for. It’s already here. But not in the way the headlines would have you believe.
Inside agency production teams, we’re not replacing jobs with algorithms. We’re using AI as a collaborator to reduce grunt work, spark creative momentum and tighten workflows across the board. It’s the difference between “how will AI change things?” and “what can we do now that we couldn’t before?”.
To show how far we’ve already come, and where we’ve recently landed, here’s a detailed look at how AI is reshaping podcast production for us across both video and audio formats.
Concept Development: Rapid Prototyping from the Start
Projects may be led by a creative team or a director, but they all begin with the same goal: original thinking that can hold shape under pressure.
Concept decks used to be built slowly and laboriously, one reference and one copy line at a time. Now, generative AI allows for rapid creation of concept art, tone references, and polished draft copy. This makes early iteration faster and more cost-effective, enabling teams to test ideas at speed and spend more time refining the work itself. We can test a tone or visual style in 10 minutes instead of an hour, freeing up the team to craft rather than just build.
Casting: Organising the Chaos
In the world of branded podcast production especially sector-facing work casting is often handled client-side. Traditionally, this meant receiving disjointed notes, scattered bios, and long email threads. Now, large language models like ChatGPT can clean, sort and matrix this information. They help identify personality fit, relevant expertise, audience alignment and tone of voice, all based on the client’s own notes. The result is a clearer, more structured process that frees the team to focus on creative and strategic suitability instead of administrative slog.
Pre-Interviews: Smarter Conversations from the Start
A producer and creative typically run pre-interviews. In the past, that meant juggling active listening with frantic note-taking, hoping to catch the most useful lines. Today, automatic transcription runs live during the call, allowing everyone to focus, annotate key takeaways, and build sharper outlines immediately after. This shift frees the team to focus on nuance, rather than capturing everything. It’s improved both the quality of the interviews and the speed of the follow-up.
Episode Planning: AI as Editorial Sparring Partner
Once interviews are complete, the creative lead shapes the story arc and develops key talking points. AI now acts as a sparring partner in that process. It suggests alternative angles, checks alignment with messaging priorities and generates structural variations that sharpen both clarity and purpose. These tools can highlight gaps or opportunities based on transcripts and help speed up editorial decision-making.
Production: Live Annotation and Real-Time Collaboration
During filming or recording, live transcription feeds directly into a shared document accessible by producers, creatives, and clients in real time. This enables group annotation on the fly, capturing standout lines and flagging issues as they happen. Whether in the studio or listening remotely, everyone involved can highlight great moments immediately. That shared attention means fewer missed gems and less time spent trawling footage later.
Post-Production: Where AI Delivers Most
This is where the impact of AI podcast production is most transformative:
- Text-Based Editing: Editors now cut assemblies directly from the transcript. Silences, filler words, and double-ups can be deleted in seconds.
- Select Pulling Made Collaborative: Editors and creatives collaborate using transcript-based platforms to quickly pull selects for VO or sync.
- Placeholder Voiceover: AI-generated voiceovers now stand in during rough cuts, making timing and tone testable before pick-up lines are captured.
- Multi-Format Outputs: Once approved, AI tools speed up podcast versioning for web, internal platforms, and social. Reformatting for LinkedIn, YouTube, and reels is faster and more consistent.
Where We’re At
Many of these steps are already baked into our day-to-day. Automatic transcription, AI-assisted note-taking, and text-based editing are standard in most agency podcast workflows. Others, like live collaborative annotation or casting support via large language models, are more recent but proving their value quickly.
None of these tools replace the human layer. The creative gut still matters. So does the producer instinct. The editor’s eye also remains crucial to shaping something that feels alive — something not just polished, but emotionally true. Because even in branded podcast content, we’re building character, tension, and payoff. What’s changing is how much faster we can get to those moments, how much easier it is to test them, and how much smoother our path from concept to delivery has become.
AI isn’t replacing us. It’s sitting beside us. It may not always be right, but it’s always ready to help.
