✊ AI-Proof Podcasts IV: The death of the expert interview
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Happy Friday, friends, We’re back today with our final installment of our series on creating durable podcasts in the age of AI. If you’ve missed the previous 3 installments, you can catch up here, where we covered:
Now, let’s round things out. Last week, I listened to three podcast episodes that have been rattling around my brain ever since, and which I've recommended at least a dozen times collectively. The episodes cover three very different topics—consciousness, AI, and personal finance—from two different shows—The Ezra Klein Show, and Money For Couples... But despite their surface-level differences, they have two things in common. Two traits that point to the types of shows that will continue to grow and thrive in the age of AI content. Those traits are as follows:
In almost every conversation with friends and clients over the past year about shows they’re listening to right now, these two traits crop up. Based on everything we’ve discussed in this series, this trend makes sense. Given the ocean of information and the rapid pace of change we have to make sense of, it’s only natural that we seek out sages who can (or at least appear to) parse, distil, and simplify it to help us make sense of a topic, the world, and our lives. And as more of our lives revolve around interfacing with machines, it’s no surprise that we might crave the experience of hearing two or more smart, funny, thoughtful, or otherwise engaging humans play with ideas. Previously in this series, we discussed how the most valuable role we can play as hosts is no longer as teachers but as filters, distillers, contextualizers, and explainers. What we haven't discussed, yet, however, is how the guests, cohosts, and conversations we facilitate must change to keep up with where podcasts are going. Specifically, the type of dynamic human interaction that is becoming table stakes. On paper, this is where podcasting—a medium built around humans talking—should have a natural advantage. And yet, most shows are squandering it. Because there's more to creating the kind of dynamic human-to-human interaction that listeners are increasingly drawn to than putting two people together and letting them talk. In fact, that type of (frankly, flaccid) show is exactly what listeners are rejecting. The type of overly agreeable show where the host and guest know pretty much exactly what each of them will say before the interview starts. The type of show with few, if any, surprises, that is little more than an opportunity for a guest who has already made the rounds on 12 different shows to answer the exact same questions and give the exact same responses one more time. Unfortunately, this is exactly the type of show that is most common, especially among business owners. And if you want to stay relevant in the world of AI content, it’s the type of show you must do everything in your power to distance yourself from. When I think about the type of dynamic, human interaction I and others are increasingly drawn to, it comes down to one thing: Tension. Tension can come in many varieties, from the set up and payoff of a joke, to intellectual sparring and debate, to an exploration into the unknown reaches of a topic, to the host and guest uncovering insights in real time together as the product of the conversation, to real, authentic vulnerability (not the trite, performative, buzzword kind), and more. Regardless of the form it takes, captivating shows are grounded in tension. In the best episodes, the host, guest, and listeners all walk away enriched—having learned something new and thought more deeply about their ideas and preconceptions. Of course, the reason these shows are scarce is that, as a host, it takes real confidence to pull off. It requires you to push back, challenge, play devil’s advocate, press for specifics and examples, not let the guest off easy, and steer the conversation into unexplored and perhaps even uncomfortable territory with questions the guest doesn’t have the answers to. And yet, that unknown, unexplored, uncomfortable territory is exactly where all the best podcast episodes live. David Bowie has a quote that sums it up perfectly: "If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting." True for making great music and making great podcasts. Our job as hosts is to wade ourselves, our guests, and our audiences out past the conversations they’ve heard and had a dozen times already. Past the conversations the AIs have already incorporated into their training data. Instead, we need to plant our shows, our episodes, and our questions in new, fresh, exhilarating, and unpredictable territory. And then explore it together in a distinctly rich, deep, nuanced, human way. There's no medium better positioned to take advantage of this opportunity than podcasting. But we, as hosts, must be the ones to take it.
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