The next big battleground for podcasts is video — and YouTube wants to cement its dominance.
On Tuesday, YouTube announced a slate of new AI products as it seeks to solidify itself as the leader in the category over competitors like Spotify or Apple.
Starting next year, audio-first podcasters will be able to generate video clips for YouTube from their audio transcripts. The tool uses Google’s Veo AI technology to generate short 30-second to 60-second visuals that can either become a YouTube short or a part of a long-form video upload. The feature will initially be available to a limited set of US podcasters.
The target audience? Audio podcasters with little to no video experience.
There is a class of podcast creators who are not gifted in video or who “don’t want to make the conversation awkward by having four or five cameras in a studio,” T. Jay Fowler, YouTube’s senior director of product management focused on podcasts and music, told Business Insider.
AI-generated video could make it easier for those creators to get started on YouTube, Fowler said.
“You can imagine some partners or podcasters thinking, ‘Oh, getting on YouTube is a big hurdle,'” he said. “It is a video-centric platform. And so this will also help ease people into the experience. They can dip their toe.”
Related stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
YouTube emerged as the top player in podcasting by hosting a slate of talk-show style channels from creators like Rhett & Link, Theo Von, and Joe Rogan. About a third of weekly podcast consumers in the US prefer YouTube, beating out all rivals, according to a January report from Edison Research.
But the company is a less natural fit for podcasts that aren’t talk shows and aren’t easily adapted to video. YouTube thinks these new AI tools can help it make inroads there.
Adding video could help audio-focused podcasters meet consumer demand. The share of US adults who said they preferred video podcasts hit 42% in August 2024, up from 32% in October 2022, per a Morning Consult report from October.
Spotify made a big push into video last year and told investors in July that consumption of video podcasts was growing 20 times faster than audio alone. Even Netflix is looking to get into the game. It’s held exploratory meetings with creators and sought to hire a video podcast executive.
But YouTube has a clear head start in the category as a native video platform with a well-established creator ad revenue sharing model. The company’s TikTok-like short-video feature, shorts, can also serve as a marketing tool for podcast creators. Forty-four percent of new podcast audiences begin listening on YouTube, according to a June report from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights.
On Tuesday, YouTube announced an additional AI-powered tool to help creators clip highlights from their video podcasts for YouTube shorts. Clipping has become an increasingly important marketing tool for podcasters and other long-form creators. The feature will roll out in the coming months, the company said.
