Have you heard? There’s a new marketing podcaster on the scene … your brand.
Now, before you say you don’t have the time or resources to create and produce your own audio content, it turns out you do.
And it’s available free through Google’s NotebookLM.
If you haven’t tried it, NotebookLM is an AI-powered research tool that lets you upload and organize web pages, documents, slides and other files.
You can get summaries of your information, ask NotebookLM questions and discover patterns and trends in your data. It’s an effective research tool for individuals or teams.
Google just introduced a new feature, Audio Overview or ‘Deep Dive’ conversations that makes your written content a lot more talky.
Featuring two perky voices, a man and a woman, the platform gives you a summary of your data in the form of a fast-paced and breezy podcast you can listen to or share.
You could create audio summaries of research reports, competitor analyses, or campaign performance data. Marketing teams can produce audio overviews of client briefs, strategy documents or create engaging content for clients or internal audiences.
Putting Deep Dive Podcasts into Practice
David started taking his lecture slides and teaching notes and uploading them to NotebookLM. He now generates a podcast summary of every Future of Marketing class he teaches at the Schulich School of Business – York University.
This gives students another way to access the material and is especially useful for students who may have missed the lecture or want to review key concepts in an informative and entertaining way.
Here’s an example of one of his Deep Dive Podcasts.
Have a listen and let us know your main takeaway from the class? 😀
Not Quite Ready for Prime Time
While we see lots of potential for marketers to engage customers with this feature, we found three immediate limitations:
- Your brand voice could get lost. Because everyone uses the same two voices that speak in the identical style and tone regardless of topic, there’s a sameness to the output. And it won’t take long for people to get tired of the voices and tune out.
- Hallucination and mispronunciation. These podcast summaries are subject to the same challenges of all AI content, so there could be hallucinations, misinformation or bias. In our tests of the technology, we found it to be mostly accurate, but, as they say in the ad world, ‘results may vary’. For instance, it couldn’t pronounce the name of our business school Schulich correctly. So we had to edit our text and write it as ‘shoe-lick’ for the AI to get it right.
- No control. You can’t easily edit your podcast within NotebookLM, though you could always upload the audio file to an editing app and do post-production the old-fashioned way. Also, you can’t prompt it for length or ask it to focus on specific topics you’d like it to highlight.
AI Podcasts: Future Marketing Opportunities
As voice AI podcasting tools develop, we believe companies will use this technology in marketing campaigns. However, usage will be contingent on improved functionality and customization.
Personalized voice creation
As we mentioned, today’s Deep Dive podcasts always use the same two voices. So the first change we’d need to see would be the ability for brands to personalize or customize the voices. Perhaps, a company can model the actual voices of corporate executives of celebrity spokespersons. In the future, maybe you could even hear a podcast with the late Steve Jobs promoting iPhone 17.
Interactivity
Imagine if, after you listen to an AI podcast, you could ask the ‘host’ a question and they could respond in real-time. That could help you build a deeper level of customer engagement. And perhaps, if they’re talking about a product that’s sponsored by your brand, they might try to upsell you or offer you a special deal. Of course, brands would need to be mindful of the ethical red line.
Hyperrealistic Podcast Avatars
The next logical step would be for brands to create a lifelike avatar of your key spokespersons or leadership team, and then have them speak to audiences in a natural way. The technology is already here, but requires multiple steps and platforms.
AI expert and FMI contributor Tianyu Xu demonstrated the potential by creating believable avatars of what NotebookLM’s voices might look like. And while this appears to be a glimpse into the uncanny valley, you can see how this might evolve to take customer engagement to a whole other level.
Would you or your company use an AI podcast as part of your content marketing campaign? How comfortable would you be creating AI avatars of your CEO and letting them answer questions in a meeting or town hall? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
And stay tuned … The FMI AI podcast may be on its way to an AirPod near you.
This post was written by FMI Executive Director and Professor David Rice and FMI Associate Director and Professor Martin Waxman.
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