Who Needs Humans? Inception Point AI Bets On $1 Podcast Model.

Artificial intelligence is making podcast production easier by the day, but a new firm headed by former Wondery COO Jeanine Wright is demonstrating how it is also being used to cut costs. The newly launched Inception Point AI says it can create episodes for one dollar or less, depending on how long and complex the episode is.

It is able to create shows for so little money since it relies on AI talent, not real hosts. Wright tells The Hollywood Reporter it is where content creation is heading. “We believe that in the near future half the people on the planet will be AI, and we are the company that’s bringing those people to life,” she said.

Inception Point AI has already created its own Quiet Please Podcast Network, which has produced more than 5,000 shows to date. It reportedly has had 10 million downloads since launching in September 2023, with its roster of programs publishing more than 3,000 episodes per week that the company says takes about an hour to produce from start to finish. They range from biographies of famous people to short podcasts offering a city’s weather in podcast format, and just about all the other podcast genres in between. Each is monetized by programmatic advertising, with the barrier to profitability significantly lower since it costs so little to produce an episode.

Wright dismisses the podcasters critical of AI-generated shows as “lazy luddites,” telling the Hollywood Reporter that there is “a lot of really good stuff out there” generated without actual human podcasters. The network discloses that their personalities are AI-generated at the start of each episode.

As more podcasts are pivoting to video, the eight-employee startup is also now looking to expand into video podcasts, looking to potentially make some of those AI-generated personalities famous enough to become social media influencers. The Hollywood Reporter says Inception Point AI will also soon seek outside investors. It says the operation is currently being bootstrapped by its employees, none of which currently take a salary.