The Podcasters' Guide to AI Show Notes Generators

Welcome to the Podcasting Resources Guide podcast, where we explore the latest podcasting platforms, tools and techniques. In today's episode, we'll cover Polymash's exploration of AI show notes generators.

Did you ever stop to think about all the work that goes into podcasting? It's not just about recording the episodes themselves. There's so much more that happens behind the scenes, like creating show notes, promoting on social media, and converting transcripts into valuable assets. It may not be the most glamorous part of the job, but it's crucial for the success of any podcast.

At Polymash, we've delved deep into the world of AI show notes generators. These tools promise to automate the process and make our lives easier. But do they really live up to the hype? Let's dive in and find out!

For those not familiar with show notes, they're essentially a summary of each podcast episode. They give listeners a quick overview of what the episode is about and what they can expect to hear. they also serve an SEO and discoverability function for the podcast host.

Traditionally, creating show notes has been a manual and time-consuming task. Podcasters would have to listen to the entire episode, jotting down important details and highlighting key moments. But with the emergence of AI show notes generators, the process has become much more efficient.

These AI-powered tools use natural language processing technology to analyze the audio of an episode and automatically generate a written summary. It saves podcasters valuable time and effort. Some generators even provide additional features like keyword extraction, sentiment analysis, and topic tagging, further enhancing the value of the generated show notes.

However, not all AI show notes generators are created equal. Some may produce inaccurate or poorly structured summaries, leaving podcasters with additional work to do. That's why it's important to explore different options and find the one that best suits your needs.

We've taken it upon ourselves to test all AI show notes generators we could get our hands on, putting them through their paces. You can find individual links of our reviews in the show notes. We've considered factors like accuracy, flexibility, and ease of use. Our goal is to outline the criteria for selecting such a tool, so let's jump right in and see which factors are important to consider!

Let's talk about a crucial aspect of AI transcription tools that often goes unnoticed: speaker labels. Sure, most of these programs can update the speaker labels, but is that really enough? I don't think so. There are two important features and implementation factors that need to be considered.

Firstly, speaker labels should be updated before AI show notes and any other AI produced content is generated. Why is this so important? Well, imagine if your insightful guest gets misquoted because the AI content didn't have the correct speaker labels. That would be a disaster, right? Thankfully, our friends at Castmagic and Swell have got this covered. They allow you to update speaker labels before generating the AI content. It's like making sure everyone's name card is correctly placed at a dinner table. It just adds that extra touch of accuracy.

By updating the speaker labels and other important terms beforehand, you can ensure that when the AI generates the content, it includes the correct speaker attributions and terminology.

The good news is that these AI transcription tools are evolving, and many are now recognizing the importance of speaker labels. It's a step in the right direction, but there's still a long way to go.

Imagine you’re using an AI transcript, and it misspells a word throughout. It's that cringey moment when everything goes wonky, right? Whether it's wrong guest names, brand names, or even your Aunt Sally's secret ingredient in her apple pie recipe that you mentioned, it's frustrating to see AI tools fail at fixing their mistakes.

That's where the feature of Global Search and Replace comes in. It's an essential function that allows users to correct wrong terms in the transcript, guest names, brand names, and more. But what good is this feature if it doesn't update all of the AI-generated content?

In our testing, we've found that most AI tools lack this crucial capability. And even if they do have it, it often applies only to the transcript. So, fixing initial content with the wrong information can be a hassle. However, we did come across a couple of tools that offer workarounds.

For example, in Castmagic, there's a two-step process to fix the content. First, you correct the transcript itself, and then you click the "regenerate" function on the AI-generated content you want to fix. This way, you can ensure that the corrected information is reflected throughout the AI-generated content. It's great to see options like this available.

Swell AI is another tool that stands out in this regard. They provide the much-needed ability to make global corrections to the AI-generated content. So, fixing any mispronunciations or wrong information becomes a breeze.

However, these tools with the Global Search and Replace feature are exceptions rather than the norm. In our overall testing, most of the tools we evaluated did not even offer this functionality. It's disappointing because it limits the user's ability to ensure accuracy and consistency in their AI-generated content.

It's important to recognize the significance of the Global Search and Replace feature. It enhances the user experience by allowing quick and efficient corrections across all AI-generated content.

As AI technology continues to evolve, we hope that more tools will recognize the importance of this feature. It's essential for ensuring the quality and reliability of AI-generated content...

Have you ever wanted the freedom to create your show notes exactly the way you like them? Well, you're not alone! Just like how no two authors write a book in the same manner, podcasters have their own unique visions for laying out their show notes. And that's where the importance of customizable show notes platforms comes in.

Now, most AI show notes platforms out there generate intelligent and useful sections like Time Stamps, Titles, Social Media Posts, and Episode Intros. These tools provide a great foundation for organizing your notes. However, many of them restrict you to pre-set templates or require some degree of copy/pasting.

But imagine if you had complete control over the layout and structure of your show notes without the hassle of copying and pasting. Wouldn't that be important? Well, you're in luck because there are platforms like Swell AI and Castmagic understand this philosophy and offer a high degree of customization for constructing your show notes.

When it comes to arranging your show notes, the possibilities are endless. Some podcasters prefer to start with an engaging Intro, followed by Time Stamps to help listeners navigate the episode easily. Then, they include Content Segments with key insights and bullets, Guest Details, Links Mentioned, and even Frequently Asked Questions for added value.

So look for a tool where you set templates to assemble Show Notes in any way that suits your content and style. No more repetitive copy-and-pasting – just seamless and consistent show notes for every episode.

So, let's talk about segment-specific AI instructions for your podcast. This is a game-changer for podcasters who want to add their personal touch and voice to their content. With these tools, you can adjust and fine-tune the AI-generated content using additional prompts and instructions.

One platform that excels in this area is Podsqueeze. It allows you to customize the AI-generated segments according to your preferences. By providing specific prompts and standing instructions, you have control over the flow and tone of your written content. This means you can truly make it your own and add that special flair that sets your podcast show notes apart.

Another tool worth mentioning is Castmagic. Similar to Podsqueeze, Castmagic offers the ability to create entire custom segments based on specific AI prompts. This means you can create unique segments for each new episode effortlessly. Imagine the possibilities -- you can tailor the content to suit different themes, guest interviews, or special topics. It's like having a dedicated segment producer who caters to your podcast's needs.

And let's not forget about Swell AI. They also provide a similar feature that lets you automatically create segments based on AI prompts. This means your podcast can maintain consistency, even if you have different topics or guests every episode.

Most of these AI tools offer a Chat interface, but segment-specific standing instructions are truly more useful for podcasters. They give you the power to consistently shape the content of your show notes.

Episode length plays a crucial role in determining the quality of AI-generated content. Through extensive trials, we have discovered that AI platforms generally deliver better performance with longer content pieces. However, what about those short format podcasts that last between 10 to 30 minutes? Our thorough testing has revealed a significant gap in the performance of many tools when it comes to handling short podcasts. They often miss entire segments, particularly when these podcasts include "Podcasting 2.0" chapters in their mp3 files.

If your show falls into the 10-30 minute range, we completely understand your struggle. It's quite intriguing how the longer the content, the more impressive the AI-generated output tends to be. At Polymash, we embarked on a quest to explore various platforms using our own short-format podcast, and the results were incredibly diverse. This forced us to take matters into our own hands and develop an AI tool that leverages chapter markers to ensure well-structured show notes.

By utilizing chapter markers, our AI tool enhances the overall structure of your show. It ensures that essential segments are not overlooked or omitted, even in shorter podcasts. The chapter markers serve as guideposts for the AI, allowing it to generate high-quality and coherent show notes throughout the entire episode. This approach significantly improves the accuracy and completeness of the AI-generated content, making it a valuable asset for both creators and listeners.

Now, we just wished more of the existing platforms would use "Podcasting 2.0" style chapter markers. After all, if you as a podcaster go through the trouble of including these, we feel the AI tools should use them.

Imagine if every time you're listening to your favorite podcast, the charismatic host is referred to as 'The Host' and the guest is referred to as 'The Speaker.' It wouldn't resonate with you, would it? It’s sterile and distances the reader. I mean, who wants to feel like they're reading robotic content, right?

This can become a unintentional barrier if it's not tuned to use the names of actual people involved in the podcast. You see, when AI manages to use the defined speaker labels seamlessly in the generated content, it succeeds in delivering notes that sound like they were made by a real person.

Think about it. As a podcast host, you want your audience to feel connected to you, to feel like they know you. Using AI that refers to you as 'The Speaker' just doesn't cut it. It creates this weird sense of detachment, like you're some disembodied voice. That's not the vibe we're going for here.

Yet too many of these tools do not get this right. Understandable if they are lacking a 'Speaker Label' feature, which you need in the first place to achieve this. So be sure to look for this when evaluating show notes platforms. When your show notes tool personalizes the AI-generated content, it feels like it was tailor-made for you.

Which brings me to another point, testing out these tools using a free trial offer is very important. In some cases trials were not even available, and we had to pay up-front for even testing a tool: Imagine our disappointment when some of these then did not offer speaker labels, or produced content peppered with "the host" and "the speaker" summaries, social media content and show notes.

Finally let's talk about our future wish list for AI tools. I mean, imagine a world where these tools not only assist you in various content production tasks, but also come fully equipped with SEO capabilities. How cool would that be? It would be like having your own personal SEO expert right at your fingertips.

Picture this: the AI tool suggests the perfect SEO keyword for your content, tags your posts appropriately, re-writes your show notes to be SEO optimized, creates meta-descriptions that make your content stand out i the search results, and even provide intuitive title suggestions based on SEO data. How convenient would that be?

So far we have not found a single platform that does this, which is why we at Polymash have created our own AI show notes generator platform with built in SEO savvy. We are not looking to sell this, but did this just to overcome the current shortfall of these tools when it comes to shorter episode formats and SEO.

So, as we look ahead, let's envision a future where AI tools become an SEO savvy part of your content creation workflow, and are able to produce assets to help boost our online presence. It's an exciting prospect, and I can't wait to see it become a reality.

Thanks for listening to today's episode where we explored AI show note generators and their effectiveness in podcast production tasks. Be sure to visit the Podcasting Resources Guide and our show notes for the complete list of AI powered show notes tools that we reviewed. I'll see you guys at the next one and don't forget to subscribe!