As big tech companies are increasingly investing in podcasts, Spotify on Thursday announced the acquisition of startup Podz, which is focused on AI technologies to enhance audio content discovery. The company wants to integrate Podz’s technologies to push its own podcast platform.
The acquisition was confirmed earlier today on Spotify Newsroom. Podz was created to help users discover new podcasts with a smart feed based on machine learning and artificial intelligence. The app automatically generates short 60-second clips that highlight the best moments of each podcast that may sound interesting to the user.
According to Spotify, such technology will be implemented on its own platform to improve the way users discover new podcasts.
Spotify has had machine learning experts focused on improving audio discovery for almost a decade, but there is more work to be done. We believe that Podz’ technology will complement and accelerate Spotify’s focused efforts to drive discovery, deliver listeners the right content at the right time, and accelerate growth of the category worldwide.
Interestingly, the announcement comes a day after Facebook confirmed that it will bring podcasts to its social network on June 22. On Facebook, creators will also have the option to create smart short clips to promote podcasts.
Apple has also been investing more in podcasts, following a redesigned version of the Podcasts app that was introduced with iOS 14.5 in April and paid podcast subscriptions, which became available earlier this week. With paid podcasts, Apple expects that creators will have more motivation to provide exclusive content to listeners, such as an ad-free experience or even bonus episodes.
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