How to create a podcast from an article, and in several languages.
Creating a podcast from an article, without going into the studio or having guests.
To create this podcast from an article I tried 4 different AI platforms....And I think I've found the one which works best.
I wanted to find a way to repurpose an article by Simon Hodgkins without asking him to spend any more time. We can't ask experts to repeat themselves; but the technology can help us to replicate their thoughts into new formats.
Simon Hodgkins
I cut and paste the 1,300 word article into these platforms and prompted for a two person conversation.
Which is the best App?
ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs has a terrific text to audio capability but the standard Studio podcast creator had good voices but the timing and interaction made it sound like a school play.
Wondercraft
Wondercraft has a 'convo' mode in beta ...but you can't export to video, or add any captions. This feature does require an upgrade to the creator plan...which is competitively priced at $25...but it's lack of finishing that's the issue.
We can't export to video yet...which means this can't be posted to LinkedIn or Youtube....but only to audio players.
Google NotebookLLM is the simplest and is really quick with a url enough to generate a podcast. But there is no control over the voices or the content and it seems they always have to use the phrase "deep dive.."....
The other part of the process is adding captions and graphics. In google it's only possible to download the audio.
Descript
Descript. Using underlord, the agentic ai within the platform, the whole process took less than 60 minutes.This was done with explanations of what I wanted e.g. thank Simon for being the inspiration for the article.The long form article became a 4 minute mini podcast in less than 30 minutes. Listen for the cadence, the interaction, the timing...
Going Multi lingual
Using Descript I was able to automatically translate this to French, one of many languages available, and dub the voices and have new text. This means that any campaign can be made international almost instantly.
Conclusion
There are more and more tools available, and it's worth checking up constantly. Today Descript has proven to be the best tool for making a podcast from an article. Tomorrow these other platforms may have caught up.
What's amazing is that these are all affordable and increasingly easy to use without any skillsets.
This makes content creation so simple, easy and low cost.
Plus...it's rather magical to see the AI create something from your imagination.
Direct your AI co-editor to turn your vision into video, or do it yourself with intuitive editing tools. With Descript, making video is as easy as typing.
