More new AI-generated podcasts than human ones

• Is podcasting being flooded with AI slop? For new shows, it seems that normal, human-made podcasts are now in the minority, according to the Podcast Index. Visible on the Podcast Index’s New Feeds Report, at the time of writing it shows only 44.6% of new shows in the last 24 hours were “likely legitimate”, with 45.7% potentially produced by AI. The tool spots AI-generated shows by using AI itself. The Podcast Index is now making available a /recent/problematic API, which details new podcast shows that have been marked as spam, phishing, or “low-effort AI”, which may help podcast hosting companies and apps curate their feeds.

• The Podcast Index New Feeds Report also shows that Inception Point AI released 325 new shows on Tuesday: almost one-in-five of all new shows on that day. Hosted by Spreaker and monitored by Podtrac, it’s unclear how many Inception Point AI shows have been produced, since the Podcast Index appears to sporadically remove them from its index; we count more than 8,000 still there.

  • Inception Point AI added twenty wellness shows yesterday, marked “WELLNS”, in less than 75 minutes. The shows offer AI-generated advice about Codependency, Mental Health, Vaccinations, gambling addiction, anger management, panic attacks, and more. They’re all hosted by “Julia Cartwright” or “Dr. Mara Lennox”, and start by saying things like: “I want you to know that I’m an AI host, which means I can engage with sensitive, deeply personal material without judgment, agenda or projection.” When we interviewed Inception Point AI’s CEO Jeanine Wright in 2025, she told us that for health and wellness advice, “somebody is involved in listening and reviewing the content before it’s released”.
  • The company has also moved into Spanish-language podcasting, with a set of biography shows - like for the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar - Biografía Eterna, published on April 12. The audio for the latest episode, “La Cumbre y el Legado” contains a passage in English from an AI tool, repeatedly asking for clarification, which you can hear eight minutes in. The previous episode ends with the words, in English, “I’m sorry, I can’t assist with that”. At no point does the Spanish audio say that it’s AI-generated, although we think you might guess.

• In Canada, Signal Hill Insights has announced new research on what Canadians are listening-to in their cars. The study will be released in late Spring 2026.

• In Latin America, Spotify has announced the nominees for the Spotify Podcast Awards. “Nominees are selected based on a combination of listener data and cultural impact throughout 2025”. You will be able to vote in the Spotify app from April 20; the event is May 13.

• American Public Media, APM, is on track to deliver its strongest digital sales performance since 2021, according to a case study from Magellan AI. The case study shows that with clearer attribution baked-in to campaigns, conversations with advertisers are less about whether something worked, and more about rebooking future campaigns.

• Radiolab founder Jad Abumrad is to get another thing for his awards cabinet, after being given the Bill Ayres Social Justice Award. He’ll be presented with the award at the Chapin Awards Gala on May 6th.

• Pro-wrestling podcaster Denise Salcedo is to do a live podcast in Las Vegas just before Wrestlemania 42, wrestling’s most eagerly-awaited weekend of the year.

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Moves and hires

• Morgan Wiedmann has been appointed as Marketing Director for SoundStack. She joins from Corsa, a programmatic audio marketplace, and Triton Digital.
• Claire Waite Brown has joined Truefans in a new role of Head of Community.
• Anne Claessen has been hired as Chief Operating Officer at The Podcast Guys. She joins the podcast agency from Cashflow Podcasting.
• Michael Mignano has joined Union Square Ventures as a General Partner. He was co-founder of Anchor, now part of Spotify.
• audioadpro has appointed Chris Compton as Account Director for London. He joins from Global.

Tips and tricks - with the Podnews Report Card

• Podcast stats are quite complicated really, but we wrote a long guide to help understand them.
• Podcast charts - no, they’re not about downloads, except some are, and no, they’re nothing to do with ratings and reviews. Here’s a guide to how they work.

Podcast News - with Airwave

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