✊ Asking the wrong question about AI
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Hi friends, A few weeks ago, I sent out a short email inviting readers to reply with what’s on their mind these days relating to their shows and businesses. Most answers covered the usual ground—growing the show, converting clients, attracting sponsors. Several mentioned exploring how to use AI to speed up their production and marketing process. One response, however, stood out, both as a stark warning and because it’s the same thing that’s been on my mind. The response is from my client, Sam Webster Harris, the host of How to Change the World and Growth Mindset Psychology, two shows that collectively drive hundreds of thousands of plays per month. “I’ve recently spoken to a few listeners who now just get summaries of most of the things they used to listen to. Which has me wondering: What makes your content worth listening to in its original form because it is uncompressible?” As Founders and podcasters, this is the existential question of our times. See, the value of our audience is directly correlated with their consumption time—the actual minutes and hours they spend engaged with our content. If that consumption time drops, then, because our audience skips through chapters or gets the AI summaries of our episodes, the value of our audience drops with it. I think of this type of extractive consumption behaviour as Strip Mine Consumption. And it's safe to say that strip mine “listeners” are significantly less likely to end up hiring us than those who consume our episodes in full. Before we can fix the problem, however, we need to understand one all-important point: Strip mine consumption isn't a listener problem, but a show problem. Consider this. Personally, I can think of several shows I’m happy to blaze through at 2x speed and dip in and out of based on the chapters. But I also have shows that I dial down to 1x. Shows I spend days eagerly anticipating immersing myself in. 90-minute (or 4-hour) shows that generate a pang of sadness when each episode ends—the same feeling upon reaching the end of a great book or TV series. Some shows, I even listen to episodes more than once. In all these cases, I am the same listener. And yet, my consumption behaviour varies wildly, directly stemming from the way the show has been designed. If we want to counter the natural tendency of listeners to strip mine our content, we too must design for it. Because at the end of the day, the content dictates listener behaviour, not the other way around. Over the next few days, I’ll break down what makes a podcast worth listening to in the age of AI content. In the meantime, hit reply and let me know: What’s a show that captivates your full attention? And what is it about the show that keeps you coming back?
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