The Origin Theatre

Podcasting was built around episodes, feeds, real-life hosts, and audiences. AI may change all of that, and fast.

Jeanine Wright of Inception Point AI - the company making AI-generated personalities and content with a podcast network of more than 11,000 active podcast shows (not episodes!) - and Nicky Birch, the person leading AI in audio efforts for BBC, join Katie Prescott of The Times for a forward-looking conversation about where AI is taking audio next. Are autonomous podcasters coming and, if so, when? Is the BBC's responsibility to be human at all costs? Is AI generated content any good? Are people actually consuming it? 

As synthetic voices, adaptive storytelling, agentic production tools and personalised listening experiences move from experiment to reality, audio is entering a new phase. Shows may become dynamic instead of fixed. Listeners may get versions shaped to their interests, context or language. Creators may build worlds, formats and characters that were impossible to produce at traditional scale. And media organisations will need to decide what still makes audio trustworthy, human and worth returning to.

The panel will explore what happens when production becomes increasingly automated, voices become programmable, and storytelling becomes more responsive, personalised and global.

This session is for anyone who wants to understand not just how AI is changing podcast workflows, but how it may redefine the very format, principles, economics and audience experience of audio itself.