AI Tools that Can Power Up Your Podcast Production

From chatbots to transcriptions, AI tools can help you make better podcasts, and speed up your production.

Podcasts are one of the most personal forms of media for sharing ideas and providing rich discussions; they rely on the human touch to make them compelling. We're far from the time when podcasts could be generated by AI, though there are certainly companies trying to do this. However, when producing a podcast, there are a number of AI tools you can use to help prepare, record, and publish your podcast.

Here are some AI tools that can help you produce your podcast and save time.

Podcast preparation

There are all kinds of podcasts, from a single person reading from a script or extemporizing to panels of multiple people discussing topics. Very few podcasts are truly improvised; at a minimum, you have to plan your topic or interview questions before you record. Once you've chosen a topic or booked a guest, it can be helpful to use an AI Chatbot to prepare bullet points to discuss or questions to ask the guest.

Many of these tools are familiar: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Anthrophic's Claude, and Perplexity.ai. They all offer pretty much the same features, though Perplexity.ai has two advantages over the others. It offers a choice of several ChatBots to Pro subscribers. It also has access to the web and lists sources it has consulted, so you can check up to ensure that the results aren't hallucinations, or things the chatbot just made up.

Fix poor recordings

Most podcasters have a decent microphone and record and a quiet space, but when you have guests on your show, they may not have the equipment to make a clean recording. Many of them will speak into the internal microphone on their computer, and there may be background noise or room noise. There are plugins for audio editing apps that can clean up audio, some of which are quite expensive, but recent AI tools can be more efficient and cheaper, or even free.

Audacity, which many podcasters use to edit their podcasts, includes some AI tools, one of which, Noise Suppression, can clean up audio. It's only available for Windows, however. Logic Pro and GarageBand also have a built-in Audio Unit plug-in, AUSoundIsolation, that can clean up audio. Neither of these tools are as good as the AI tools below, but if you use one of these apps to edit podcasts, it's worth trying these plug-ins to see if they are sufficient for your needs.

ElevenLabs' Voice Isolator can clean up room noise on recordings, and the results are pretty good, though I've found that Adobe's Enhance Speech is even better. This feature is also built in to Adobe Audition. These AI tools tend to make the speech bassy, so you will need to apply some EQ to make them sound realistic. While none of them can replace a good microphone and engineer, they can help when you don't have these options.

Create transcriptions

Lots of people like podcast transcriptions. They may not have time to listen to an entire podcast, or they may want to look up something that a host or guest mentioned in an episode. A podcast transcription posted on a website can also help attract online search traffic, especially if you have guests on your podcast who people might search for.

Apple now automatically generates transcriptions for podcasts, but you might want to create your own, either that listeners can view in a podcast app or on your website. You can upload your transcriptions to Fireside, and Apple will display them in its Podcasts app. (If you want to tell Apple to use your transcripts, you need to change a setting in Podcasts Connect.)

One of the best AI transcript services is Otter.ai. When you've finished editing your podcast, upload it to Otter, and you'll have your transcript in a few minutes. Otter also creates summaries and outlines of what is discussed with subheads and bullet points. However, you should manually check these transcripts for errors, especially for proper names or product names.

Castmagic creates transcripts and more: it can prepare show notes, summaries, titles, speaker bios, and even prepare content for blog posts or social media.

No matter how you create a transcript, you can feed it into a chatbot to get titles and summaries for your podcast. It can be useful to upload a transcript and ask a chatbot for ten titles, then look through them and see if any fit with the tone of your podcast.

Online podcast production tools with AI features

The tools discussed above all focus on one element of AI-assisted podcast production. But there are some podcast production platforms that include multiple AI tools, as well as providing an interface for recording, editing, and more.

Descript is an online platform that allows you to record and edit audio and videos via text; you delete or move text around in the app's interface and it edits the media in the background. It has a number of AI features, including transcription, a tool to choose clips to share on social media, audio enhancement, and tools to chapterize, summarize, create show notes, social media posts, and more. It can even automatically remove the ums and ahs that take up your valuable editing time.

Riverside.fm is similar to Descript; it's a full podcasting studio in a web browser. Record 4K video and uncompressed audio in the app. Enhance the audio of your recordings, use text-based editing to simplify post-production, use Riverside.fm's AI transcription tool to get the text of your episodes, and use AI to create show notes,. You can even use its AI voice generator to create intros, outros, and ad reads in your voice.

Check out these AI tools and see if they can save you time, and improve your podcast episodes.

Streamline Your Workflow with Fireside.fm

Whether you’re experimenting with new AI tools or want a simpler way to publish and promote your show, Fireside.fm makes it easy. From uploading transcripts to seamlessly distributing your episodes, our platform is built to help you leverage the best tech while staying focused on what matters most—creating great content.

Ready to see how Fireside can enhance your podcast journey? Sign up today and take your show to the next level!