Adobe Podcast – Simplifying Audio Editing – with Mark Webster #620

Todd and Rob in the afternoon. Hey. Afternoon to love. With Todd and Rob. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And here we are with the new media show with, Todd in, The Philippines. And we're on a new streaming setup this time using OBS. So I'm looking at the interwebs and everything looks good. Rob, welcome to the show. Yeah. It's great to be back with the show, Todd. We've got an exciting episode. We're gonna talk about

some Adobe podcast tonight. So I'm looking forward to to learning everything about, the Adobe podcast platform, and we've got a terrific guest here, Mark Webster, who's the head of Adobe podcast. And so, Mark, welcome to the New Media Show. It's great to have you with us. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to share everything we've been up to. And as I told you guys earlier, I'm an open book, so ask away. Awesome.

Well, Todd, go ahead. Yeah. So I'm looking at the stream, and I'm not hearing I'm not getting your guys' audio. So let me turn on another audio source. I don't know what happened here. Let me go and unhide. Oh, lovely. There's always something that, that happens here, and I don't know why. So let me do this unhide all. Alright. Now let's try alright. Go ahead and talk, Rob. Yeah. Well, Mark, I know that the Adobe podcast platform, has been around for, what, a couple years

now. Right? Why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of how how the whole thing kinda came about at Adobe, and what your connection was at the very beginning of this and and kind of then we can dive into the details. Yeah. Absolutely. So I joined Adobe in 2018 when a company I had founded called SaySpring was acquired by Adobe. And SaySpring was a voice design and prototyping platform.

So if you're building stuff for voice assistants, which a lot of people were at the time, you needed new design tooling in order to do that. There was a lot of synergies with, Adobe. So we had the opportunity to join. I've used Adobe and Macromedia tools my entire career, so I was absolutely thrilled to join the company. And one of the goals of the acquisition was to come up with a broader voice

strategy for for Adobe. And so kind of the way our team took that is we step back and looked at in a world where there was so much smart audio hardware, right, where everybody was wearing AirPods now, Already, podcast consumption was, you know, sort of growing, rapidly. We looked at sort of what does it take to create good voice content, right, good spoken audio content. And as as we saw in the beginning of this, it's hard. It's hard to get everything set up correctly,

especially if you're new to it. Right? There's a lot of challenges with it. At the same time, we had an opportunity to meet a lot of the amazing researchers that we have in Adobe Research and see what amazing audio technology they had been incubating and working on themselves. So kinda I guess it was around 2020, early '20 '20.

We pitched to Scott Belsky, who was, chief product officer at the time, let our team kinda roll out and focus on what is an AI first audio strategy, that we could put together that was, you know, based around spoken audio and and sort of the mission that we always say is, helping people share something as fast as it is to create it. Right? So just say something and and and sort of cut down on the editing process, cut down on a lot of the work that's involved.

And so, we also, because we had been acquired, we were still a small team of engineers, designers, and a product person. So Adobe and Scott sort of helped us set up as an independent team and basically get started, and build what has become Adobe Podcast. It's funny. At first, podcast wasn't thinking about recording, and then the first week that we all worked on it together was March 2020, which was the beginning of the shutdown. And all of a sudden, remote recording became a big requirement.

So we sort of built out this platform, started rolling out pieces of it. We were in a private beta. And to get some more people into the private beta, we decided, hey. Let's take two of the core AI services that that, are part of the platform, which is Mic Check, which is, sort of an online assistant that that helps you set up your mic correctly and make sure the reverb in the room is is good for recording.

And then Enhanced Speech, which makes spoken audio sound like it was recorded in the studio. And we created these sort of single serve pages. And just the idea was, oh, people can get a little excited by this, join the beta, kinda see everything that we're building, and Enhanced Speech just took off. It was I I my I've been building stuff for twenty five years. I've never seen something just virally grow as fast as enhanced

speech did. It took over TikTok. It took over YouTube really quickly while we were a team of five people. Quickly had million users using it, and that just sort of started the journey. Kind of then got us, you know, to to to get some, more people to join the team, to build it out, and sort of, you know, start what has become the Adobe podcast

journey. But, yeah, it was sort of humble beginnings of incubating something small that just took off because of sort of the genius of Adobe researchers coming up with enhanced speech. That's kind of a that's amazing transition from from one thing to a product now that podcasters are using to record their episodes and do everything that Adobe Podcasts or Adobe Podcasts Premium is more of a package,

than offers. Yeah. It was always it was always intended to be an end to end platform and product that helped anyone, you know, sort of record, edit, share, spoken audio content podcasts, and then enhanced speech just sort of became our wedge to help everybody know what we were up to. And so, you know, Enhanced Speech is still its own tool, is now is embedded in in, Adobe Podcast Studio, which is the end to end experience.

And so yeah. So now, you know, we have people who do group recording there, do sort of the end to end text based editing. You know, the promise of of podcasts, the platform is that you don't need to be an audio expert, that it's easy and accessible to use. You know, we don't even have sort of a multitrack editor. It's all text based editing. So just way more lightweight than sort of, you know, some of what the other workflows that we

see, people using out there. So it's also been a fun experience to just learn more about, how how people are creating these things, finding ways to kind of bring that functionality of people who aren't creating these things yet and are relatively new to it. But also the unique opportunity to do it in a place like Adobe, where, you know, we have Audition, we have Premiere. So, we don't have to go sort of

pro and high end. So, for the, you know, life of podcast, we'll be able to sort of focus on a certain sort of simplicity that, you know so the product lifestyle always ends up making you drive your product to be a little bit more complex because that's how you go after bigger customers and, you know, listen to pro users. And so I think, the benefit of sort of being in a place like Adobe is you have a bunch of that already. So we can just

remain sort of focused on simplicity. And and, again, a way, like, in my career, I haven't had the opportunity to do. So it's a it's a fun challenge of not only what do we build to bring to our users, but also, like, what don't we have to build? Like, what can we, you know, drive to a different place in Adobe when that's what you're looking for and that's what you need? You know, one thing Is this

a oh, go go ahead. You know, you know, I have had been an Adobe edition user for I I mean, like, probably since I started podcasting in 02/2004. So whatever version it was then, I I can't remember using anything else. I may have used a free product for a few episodes, but I was like, I need it in on and I to be honest with you, I don't use 95% of the things in audition that is available. You know, I use a few of the tools. So for me, it's like I I it's completely overkill.

It's an overkill product for me. And then, you know, when I see Adobe podcast, I I kinda giggle a little bit because it really gives me everything that, all I use Adobe editions. So, you know, so, you know, you're cutting, you know, the leveling that's available, you know, just a few things. And I'm thinking myself, I'm, you know, I'm paying for an Adobe of course, I use Premiere too, so I need Premiere. You know, so I'm like, wow. Maybe maybe I could

lower my bill a little bit. But for a new podcaster, this is one of the reasons why, you know, Blueberry did it. The, you know, the relationship and and opened up this ability for Blueberry podcasters to get, you know, a sixty day, free trial is we wanted podcasters to understand that they they don't need a high end product like addition or Inenberg or some of these other products are out there to get started. You get started, get your feet wet, and then maybe you graduate into addition.

And I think too, a lot of times, new content creators are very very intimidated by the editing process and maybe they don't have a budget for an editor. So the text based editing to me was like, it's no more complicated than really, you know, editing a a doc file. You know, you just you kind of scrub what you want. You delete it. It's Transcript. Yeah. It's easy. You're really editing a transcript is what you Yeah. It's very very very easy to utilize.

And, you know, I'm hoping from this you know, what you guys are doing, obviously, you're gonna be improving your product over time. But I I love the simplicity at this point. And I'm I guess, you know, from my standpoint is, you know, the you guys are obviously using some some AI, I'm assuming, in the tool or am I wrong? Yeah. No. There's there's several different pieces of of AI that sort of power things. Right? I mean, obviously, like, the transcription that also powers it is AI.

But then we also do some smart things just under the hood, right, that aren't necessarily AI, but, to just help make edits sound more natural. And actually, when you cut out a word, actually finding the right place, to to sort of make it as seamless as it can be when you use text based editor. You know, again, enhanced speech is, a core part of the recording and editing

experience. Right. It was funny. We we did a, we looked into how many people are exporting something out of Adobe Podcast without turning on enhanced speech. And it's like 3%. Wow. Like everybody who uses that tool uses enhanced speech to make it sound great. And so, you know, because we were like, oh, this is an opportunity to share this feature. Users might not know about it. And it's not on by default. But that's, you know, I think that the

ability to just sound professional, right? And have your content sound professional grade, I think it's a really hard problem to solve both technically and from a user experience perspective. But again, like that's, that's the thing that our team just kind of is obsessed with and focused on is how do we continue to just keep that simple, and make it so, you know, anyone can

use it. You know, if you go to Twitter, and, and look at, you know, or a social media platform and look at, you know, Adobe podcast, you're gonna see lots of teachers posting stuff of kids, K to 12, who are using it, who are creating podcasts for the first time. You know, so it sorta has that level of ease, but can create sort of professional and great stuff. So, yeah, it's been been a super fun product to work on.

One thing that I was also, you know, I we we talked to a number of folks and, I I think the thing that really set me apart and why we wanted to, you know, to align was that you you guys are you guys are a monster. You know, you're a big company and this is what you this is what Adobe does. Now this is the lifeblood of the company, you know, audio, video, graphics, all the things, you know, all the tools that everyone's familiar with.

So Creative tools. Yeah. All the creative tools and the creative suites. So for me, it just made sense because I'm thinking, you know, you you've had this, this powerhouse name that is they already know core audio. This is, you know, I don't know how many total years, Adobe has done audio, but it's, a process audio or, you know, going all the way back to addition and all the

other video editing tools. But I just knew that over time that you're you're probably your internal road map just as the product is just gonna get better. So for me, the the understanding is is I can I can be guaranteed this product is gonna be around tomorrow? It's going to continue to improve over time. And, obviously, there's some, integration now with some of the other products. So I'm pretty I'm pretty jazzed with the product overall. I don't know. Rob, you wanna jump in

here? I'm hogging up the mic. Yeah. I think it's really, really interesting for a company like Adobe to be moving into this direction of a of, like, a single use kind of tool. Right? I mean, it's an entry level kind of use case, but on the other hand, it may be a way for you guys to develop, AI capability that is appealing, right, in a single use case that then can be attractive that maybe will help a consumer transition over to using, like,

a full product? Or or is the company do you think, Mark, looking at this from, you know, these type of products like you've created within the Adobe podcast area that that that is kinda more more of a glimpse of the future, right, as you think about AI and AI agents and things like that. Because I can see where those three tools that you've built in in Adobe podcast so far, are very much kind of aligned with each

other from a functional standpoint. So so I'm just kind of curious on your thoughts on that as you look to to the future of AI agents and how that plays a role in what you're doing here. Yeah. Absolutely. So I I think there's sort of two pieces to it. Right? So you were first sort of talking about, you know, as as people are getting used to new tooling, and are are new to different workflows. I mean, you see the same thing at other parts of the Adobe business too. Right?

So we have Adobe Express, which is our graphics and video platform that sits alongside our pro level tools. Sort of the same idea. Either you you don't need the powerhouse of Photoshop to make certain graphics and expresses exactly what you need. You're new to graphic design overall, and, you know, that's the right tool for you. You're an EDU,

that's the right tool for you. And so I think in order to, you know, our our our vision of creativity for all, I think that part of that is making easier to use tools for those kinds of users. Right? And so I think podcast is that for audio. But I think you're seeing that across the company. Right? I also think that you're seeing sort of across the digital landscape, just the power of design and design becoming, a more and more important part of all kinds of work and content creation, right?

Of marketing, of sort of what we have traditionally called, you know, knowledge work. I think design is a more and more important part of all of that. And so again, that sort of brings a whole different type of user to it. When it comes to AI, you know, I think there's I mean, one of the benefits of of AI, at least the way we've approached it in, podcast is we very intentionally sort of looked at what is sort of end to end workflow of creating audio content.

What are all the things that either take time or take a high level of skill in order to complete? And then how can we use AI just to start chipping away at all those workflows? Right? So, or or or or just build it in a way that AI is not as important, but still chips away at that part. Right? So I would say the first is is mic check, making sure you're starting with a good recording, super important part of it. When you record in, podcast, we're also recording locally on your machine

Mhmm. And then sort of feeding that recording up into the system. So the audio that you have isn't the conversation the two people had with each other in real time. Right? It's the local recording, so it's much higher quality. Most of our users have no idea that that happened. Uh-huh. But it just ends with really good sounding audio. Right? Then you have AI to transcribe it and give you a transcript to edit with. You have AI and enhanced speech to be able to

make it sound good. Right? And all the next things that are gonna come from Adobe Podcast are, you know, how do we cut down on the editing process? How do we do, you know, automated filler word removal? How do we help you find the best clips to share on social? Right? Like, throw captions on those things. Like, all of the things that you then need to share that work with other people. Right? I think AI has a place to fit

in all of those things. And one of the things that I find sort of exciting and rewarding about what the way we focused on it is none of this is is sort of like replacing creativity. Right? It's like accelerating creativity. You know? I think that, you know, when we look at some of the other things that are out there, people keep asking me, like, are podcasts going away? Like, can't we just do, like, text to speech? I was just I mean, like, can't you

just have a robot write a book? Can't you just have a robot create an image? Like, I think that they will always you know, there'll be a a subset of work that I think, you know, AI might fill in, but I don't think creativity could be replaced, human creativity. And so I think when you can use AI to accelerate that process, I think that becomes super exciting. Right? And it gets more people to be able to share more stories with more people out there in more ways, which, you know, to me

is kinda the whole point. On the on the enhancement of the audio process, obviously, you all have perfected on the software side. I mean, there is a you go into effects and addition and you can really manipulate the audio in a big, big way. So on the enhancement of the audio, did did use the knowledge of okay. We need to

know to set this, this, and this. You know, you had specific I guess a better question is, was there set of logarithms that was gained from knowledge on on the core software product or was this a brand new effort on the enhancement of the audio? Or did you you know, did you know that and we need to touch this piece, this, this, and this. And we kinda know the logarithms already.

That's generally good or and so I guess the maybe the question is is you had to sample the audio first to know what change. That had to be relatively complex, I would think. Am I wrong on that? Or what was that process? So yeah. So it is a completely different approach to enhancing audio. And again, this was, you know, developed within Adobe Research. We have some brilliant PhDs there.

And it was funny when when I first heard about enhanced speech, I don't know if we ever shared this, but the research I called it Awesomeizer. And so the Awesomeizer, when I first saw it and I was enthralled by it, I talked to research and there was, at that time, no plan to put it in a product. And one of the reasons for that was when people were talking to customers, no customer was asking for it. Like no customer was asking for just an AI magical

switch that just makes it sound better. But it's also because customers didn't necessarily know that you could just do that and like it would work well. And so, you know, we we brought it to market because of that. But the way it actually works and I am not a PhD, so I'll give you my my dumb guy version of this. So what it actually does is it was because, you know, the one of the benefits of Adobe is, Adobe Research was able to get a big proprietary set of, training data that was all

people in studios speaking. So to basically train a service to say, this is what it sent. These are the audio characteristics of spoken audio when they're recorded in a professional studio. And then what happens is when somebody uploads audio, it looks at that audio and it just says, if that audio was recorded in a professional studio, what do I think its audio characteristics would look like? And then it just generates a new version of it, essentially.

And so it doesn't generate voices, and it's kind of a black box, you know, everyone so we have a slider that kind of lets you mix it back with the original and stuff, but that's kind of all it's doing. Because like you get basically one result out of it. And, it's not general it's all based on audio, so it's language agnostic. It doesn't know what anyone's saying in it. It doesn't know what language is in it. And and sometimes you'll get weird artifacts in

it. Like, some of them might sound like they have a lisp, but it's actually because it's like cutting off a little bit of the audio because there was a loud reverb and it doesn't know what to do in that section. So it's kind of guessing. And so that's what it does. It basically extracts out the spoken audio from the background and says, this is what I think it would look like, sound like if it had been recorded in a studio.

So, wildly different approach to to audio and very much based on, like, image generation. Like, it's, you know, sort of looking at, like, the spectral representation of that audio and then extracting it out. You should call it magic mastering or something like that instead. I know. Well, the audio people don't tell you, it's probably mastering. It doesn't really master. Right? But, yeah, I mean, it is it is wild. And so we actually you know, I think this is I think we started chatting

around November. That's when we launched v two. And so, what v two does now is also it separates out the background and then takes just the the isolated speech, then enhances that, then gives you two sliders back that says, let me slide the speech between being isolated versus enhanced, and how much of the background

do I want in. So, now there's like another AI service called SoundLift that's embedded in it that does the source separation and actually pulls the voices out above the background, but then it kinda lets you mix the background back in. See, Rob, this is why, you know, there's other companies out there, but they don't have PhDs working in a research lab coming up with this kind of stuff.

Well, I wanted to ask you too. I mean, it's very much tangential to this is, are we getting to a point with this technology of noise reduction and background sound removal that the the whole need that creators need to be worried about of having a really high quality microphone are slowly starting to disappear. So, like, Todd and I have these very expensive microphones. Are we quickly coming to a time when the quality of the microphone is somewhat irrelevant to getting studio quality audio?

Yeah. So it's a good question. I I don't think quite irrelevant because I think the better audio you start with, the better something like enhanced Quality and quality. Right? So Kind of. Right. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's it's not an accident that we also launched a mic check service at the same time to, like, hey. Start with the best possible recording you can have. However, kind of one of the things that we always describe is enhanced speech is excellent at intentionally recorded audio.

Mhmm. So if you, you know, if if you're, like, recording outside outside in the world and, you know, you there's a lot of stuff going on in the environment that can be harder to work with and and sort of any AI, you you may have some artifacts, right, some effect to it.

But if you can, like, sit in a room even with, like, a MacBook laptop mic, and you can, like, look at it the right way and then speak to it specifically, enhanced speech and and AI services in general will do, like, a great job with that. So I think we're getting to a point where, not that the microphone is is irrelevant, but you don't need it. Right? And it

becomes much more accessible. So if you're, you know, a a teenager in Brazil using an Android device, If you take that Android device and you, like, put it on your desk, and it's as quiet as you can make the room, even though it might be reverby because you have tile floors and whatnot, but you intentionally record it that way, it will come out great. It will come out professional quality. Yeah. Or even like a iPhone kind of cable microphone, that kind of thing, it it usually does

a pretty good job. Right? And and so I just wonder if these really, really high end microphones are really gonna be unnecessary. I think for the average creator, we're already seeing that Yeah. It's like, you know, these $50 mics will suffice if you're using a sound optimization type of a tool like like what you guys are offering. They may not have to invest $600 into a Shure SM seven b. So this is what I'm saying. So absolutely

on that that part. You know? I I think that, again, as long as you have a a mic A mic. Right. Right? A mic that is, like, set up and you're specifically recording into. Yeah. I also think, you know so we haven't released it in any way, but on fast enough hardware, enhanced speech works in real time. And so I think it's only a matter of time before not only is this just like a post production process, but just audio always sounds good. Right? Every phone call eventually will just sound

like it's coming from a professional studio. Yeah. Right? So I think just the world of you give it ten years, I think the world of bad audio will kind of go away. Well, I think one one example of that is like a, like a Rodecaster mixer has built in, you know, noise reduction and all these kind of filters, dynamic range enhancement, and all sorts of things that you can turn off and on in the software. Do you see at some point a tool like yours being built into hardware too? So

that's my dream. I mean, it's, you know, not really a Adobe business. We built into the microphone. Right? Yeah. I mean, I I I mean, we also, on the Firefly side, Adobe Firefly, which is a host of AI services we have, we just also launched the ability to translate content in the speaker's original voice.

You know, I I think that it's inevitable that we will have a TV that will play any movie ever made in a voice that mimics, you know, the the talent on screen, that makes it sound good if it's noisy. You know, I think, like, so much of this right now is at the point of creation and post production. I think it's not too far until it's all in the world of, like, consumption and listening. Yeah. Right? And then you can just do it to anything ever. It doesn't matter

what it was. The the creator didn't need to do it. The listener can. You know, it's it's funny because, at home, same microphone, I have an $800 preamp that is attached to. It goes through an old traditional rack system with, an EQ, a compeller, a compressor. It has, I have an Apex big bottom And, you know, I've got that thing dialed into exactly where I want it. You know, I've got sound panels and, you know, say, the sound is good. But here I am, 8,000 miles away from that studio and I'm

in a Rodecaster right now. And guess what? It's got the big bottom built in from Apex into the actual, software panel that this thing offers. So I would imagine if I went and did an AB test on how I sound right now raw compared to what I sound like raw at home, there's probably not too much of a delta. There'll be nuances of it. At the same time, if I was to switch the microphone out to a, you know, an AudioTekna a t r 2,100, there would be a different nuance in the

tone. But, again, I think in the end with what you guys are doing here, the Shouldn't matter. Shouldn't matter as long again, Christian, if you have a Blue Yeti and you're talking into the top of it, well, then we can't fix that because, you know, they're not talking into the diaphragm. They're, you know, they haven't they're using it incorrectly. So, even here, Rob and I talking a little bit off off axis, the mic will support it. But if, you know, if I was directly into it all

the time, it would be better. So, there's certain things you can't fix. Background noise, those types of things that happen are still gonna show up. I remember in Honolulu, in my office studio, I didn't I had wall units for air conditioning, and there was no way I could run that while recording. So I opened the windows to get air and, of course, if someone started a, you know, a blower across the street, a lead blower, then it completely jacked my recording. But still in the end,

the product came out really nice. So I think that, we're living in an age right now where there's a lot of forgiveness, on the input. Of course, if it's bad, it's bad. We've all heard, you know, unrecoverable audio before. You know, part of our challenge in doing live events was it took us a number of attempts to finally get to the point where we could get the, you know, the roar of a, background in a trade show down to the point where we actually could, you know there was just a muffle of that

sound. It's really hard and people I think today more than ever and you tie video component into this. If the audio is good, sounds good, they will stick with you much longer than they will if the audio is bad because people would be very annoyed by it. You know, I think about the early days when we're encoding in 16 k. You know, that audio was pretty tinny. And, but again, that's what we had to do in those early days. Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, I think bad

audio kills content. Right? I mean, I think, especially, you know, any of us who were listening to podcast in 2020 when everyone needed to start recording remotely and and were using Teams and Zoom and weren't really ready for it. You listen to some of those podcasts, like, they're unlisten you can't listen to them. Right? Like, podcasts, I remember religiously listening to and then hearing sort of that level of quality. It just it kills the experience.

On the flip side, I also think as creators, there's a tendency to get obsessed with quality Holy hell. And to think, you know, that better is just you know, better is better. And it's you know, everything needs to be in four k. You know? Oh, and I now I need to you know, my phone can record eight k, and so everything needs to be in eight k. Yeah. And, you know, people are listening to content on AirPods in the subway and, you know, kind of putting it on while they're driving.

So I think that, you know, I think there's sort of a and and and not formally defined, but I think there's sort of, like, a a base level of quality that if you are below it, your content's dead, that you need to be above. But then I think sorta at the top, there's a little bit diminishing returns. You know? So I think that, you know, the the we we always call it the knobs and sliders. Like, can we just give people a toggle? You can just turn it on, and I

promise you it's gonna sound good enough. Yeah. Like, 98% of people will like it. I think there's also you know, it's funny even as I I work with the audio research team, I mean, that team, those ears are all so finely tuned. You know, they can listen to something and point out all the problems with it. And and just like, no one is ever gonna hear that in a million years. Like, no

one is ever gonna notice that. Right? It's the same thing with I think a lot of people, you know, test, like like, whether or not they can create a voice model of their own voice, And then they hear it and, like, that doesn't sound like me. Well, I was like, it sounds like you to other people. It just doesn't sound like you to you. You know?

So I think that also understanding, like, who the audience is and kind of what you what you're planning to do with this content is a super important part of, like, creating good stuff and not just getting obsessed with, like, better and better. There's a good friend of mine, I haven't heard from him in a number of years, but his name is Paul Figgiani. And, he was involved in some of the early days, working with some pioneers in the podcasting space coming up

with audio processing. Engineer. Yeah. He's an audio engineer. And and Paul was a fan of the show, and and he was, like, constantly and he he finally heard one day that I was, using Audition. And, like three days later, he emailed he emailed me like three files. Says you need to put these in, you know, this filter this filter this filter. You need to use this in post processing and and to be honest with you, I could barely tell the difference. But Paul had an ear that was just

and some people have it. It's just like wine. Wine to me is wine. You know, I don't taste a different yeah. I might know the difference between a Merlot or, you know, or Cab, but that's good wine and bad wine. Right. But yeah. They taste Dimitishing

returns up to the top. Right. So and I think other you know, and there's also I've been in events where, you know, you go in and the there's a, you know, you have the hardcore audio fill that is, you know, they got the $5,000 amplifier and they're wearing, you know, the $2,000 headphones and they're immersed. But and I'm thinking, yeah. But like I said, most of us are just listening to music on AirPods.

So, and again, obviously, the quality on them have improved over the years and but it's it is, I think there is a fine line. Lower quality. Yeah. For sure. And and do you really need to have that deep unspoken word? Yeah. And just and and knowing sort of also what you're trying to accomplish and what story you're trying to tell. Right? Like, you you brought up sort of the the roar of a trade show. Yeah. You know, our conference floor.

When we first sort of had released Enhanced Speech, we had a bunch of example videos that were recorded at Adobe Max, which is our big conference. And so, it's on, you know, the studio floor. Yeah. And you toggle it on and it sounds super clean like it was recorded in a studio. Wow. But when you look at it, you're like it's like uncanny valley. You're like, well, you need the background noise. Like, see that person is not in a studio. Right. Right?

So, you kinda like need some of that background noise, which is what led to us kinda adding that stuff. So, you know, I'll I'll again, sort of, like, understanding what it is you're trying to Yeah. To come to to get across to the listener is an important part of the process. But at the same time, I've been in some events where I've been holding the microphone and a person that kept moving off axis and they're driving you crazy and you have a huge number of people.

So sometimes you just need to get the stuff isolated so you can hear it. And, obviously, controlled environments and most podcasters are as well. But then again, there's podcasters that are doing, you know, podcasts in bars and you know, so you want a little bit of that, like you said, that background ambiance. You know, they're not drinking beer in this sterile environment or doing shots or whatever they may be doing. So, yeah, so there's it's nice that you've added that. Rob, go ahead.

Yeah. I was just going to kind of expand on this topic, too, because I've done some videos, that I've run through the audio optimization processes, for the videos. And the videos were like filmed either in my car while I'm driving or something like that. And it's maybe what and it plays into exactly like what what you guys were saying is that sometimes the expectation of the audio quality, doesn't match with what the actual audio quality is.

And that's what it get gets into this conversation around. Well, if I'm doing a recording in my car while I'm I'm driving and people are seeing a video, but they can hear me talking at the same time and the audio sounds like I'm speaking into an s m seven b that there's kind of like a maybe a disconnect there from the standpoint of, well, his audio shouldn't sound that good. But he's cool that he does. Absolutely. Right. So I I've had that experience too, and it's

it's great. You know you know, I can listen to my video and I can say, well, that audio sounds terrific, but but it does seem a little odd to have that quality of audio in the car while you're driving. So anyway, you know, and I've I've worked with these tools for a while now in a in, you know, down this path of the record anywhere and you just run it through this algorithm and it cleans it up and makes it sound perfect. And which is great for a lot of you know, situations that you can get into.

But I I also know that your platform on your premium plan is now working with video too. So you're doing that same thing where you're processing a video, but you're fixing the audio in the video and making it better. Is that right? It's so Yeah. It absolutely. So it's funny, you know, in especially at Adobe too. Right? People tend to think audio and video. But, yeah, audio is a very important part of video. Right. Right? And so, you know, when we first launched enhanced speech,

people were yelling at us. Like, this needs to support video. I use it for a lot of video. And and and big spoiler, we're gonna be bringing video to our recording. We're gonna be bringing video to our editing, because it's just what we hear from people. It's kinda what they need. It's a hot thing now. Right, Mark? Yeah. It it's funny too. It's I so we're, like, we're researching it a lot around, like, recording too.

And kinda what we're learning is so, you know, we we do, like, the local recording of audio right now when you record in Adobe Podcast. Mhmm. To do that for video is, you know, a big technical challenge. It's solvable, but it's a big investment. But so we've been analyzing, well, could we just do cloud recording of video, but the local audio like, are people as particular about the video quality as they are about the audio

quality? And and as we talk to users, like, it turns out that for stuff like what we're doing, right, like talking head videos, podcasts, the audio is actually way more important than the video, that people are pretty forgiving of, you know, a couple artifacts on a on a talking head video or two people having a conversation if the audio sounds good.

And so it kind of becomes this flip of of when it when it is audio first content or videos, the audio needs to be better than the video because you can't do it the other way. It was So it's yeah. Just interesting to kinda learn what people actually enjoy consuming and listening to. So I I was using a variety of tools to do this show from here. When I'm home, I have a very high end system. I have a TriCaster.

It's it's completely overkill, but I get incredibly good video captures and the audio chain's really, really good as well. But when I came to this type of situation, which is more like most content creators are doing now that are on the podcasting side and having the video portion, my challenge really was I was getting one or the other. I was getting either great video or I was getting great audio, and I wasn't really getting both with some of the tools that are out there.

And, it was really driving me insane. So this is one of the reasons why I've changed up what we're doing when I'm in this location and how I'm recording. Yeah. And we're back. I'm recording the you know, just so everybody knows, we're I'm using Zoom, but that's not where the master recording's happening for the video. The master recording's happening in OBS now. But I am doing a backup recording in Zoom in case something goes sideways, which is, you

know, backup. But I would not use the Zoom video that is is it can get weird. It can get pixelated as someone's connections a little bit better, and it could happen here too. But I think your idea of if if you can have it so that you record both the video and audio locally and upload even if the person has to wait until a little bit of time after the the live event, that to me is the best best solution, for getting both a good quality,

audio recording and video. Because if if I say something and my connection goes a little bit sideways, the computer will catch it. The live will suck, but the master will still be good because we still have the master recording and same thing on each of your screens. Me, I think that is the way to to to really get that well. Now you sure you could you could build a cool interface similar to Riverside or StreamYard. But, again, I tried both of those tools and they have their own

limitations. StreamYard's, cloud recording sucks. It's horrible. Where Riverside has great video recording, but the studio tools weren't that good. So, I think if you can get a combination of both, you'll you'll knock it out of the ballpark. You'll compete heavily in that regard. Yeah. So we I mean, we haven't made decisions on exactly how we'll roll it out. But I will say that in the the kinds of so you it's hard to fill gaps in audio, right, when recording.

Right. It's not that hard to record gaps in video. That's true. If you have jaggies, right, if you have a stutter, that's where I think there's a role for AI to be able to, like, fill those gaps Mhmm. And make it sound good. Right? So that won't work on a motion picture you're editing in Premiere, maybe. Right. But it definitely works for sort of the kinds of stuff that people would be creating and working

on in Adobe Podcasts. Right? So again, I think that, you know, we kinda always joke about, like, what's enhanced video gonna look like, right, to sit alongside enhanced speech? What is enhanced music gonna sound like? So I think there's a lot of opportunity to kind of solve some of those problems because, yeah, local recording might be great, but also, you know, if you're that Brazilian teenager on a low power Android device,

I can't hold the whole thing. Right? I can't the memory on that can't hold that local recording. So there's a big opportunity for, you know, with the distribution and the reach that Adobe has to make something that is, like, super accessible to a whole bunch of storytellers that, you know, have have a lot of trouble creating those kinds of pieces content now. It's just like I think it's all a balance and and we'll figure it out. It's just like right now, I've got a light adjusted wrong.

So I'm getting a little refraction in my glass and it's driving me absolutely crazy. I can't fix that. It it's it's there. It's gonna live. I can fix it in I can fix it, after I get done and adjust the light, but I can't. You said maybe you can fix it. But, right now, you know, it's doing live. There's no way to fix it. Yeah. This I mean, live is definitely trickier.

Right. I will also say, I had a call earlier today, just as the sun was going down, and I noticed the reflection of the screen in my glasses. So twenty minutes before I joined this call, I put my contacts in. It wouldn't have just when I talk to you both. Yeah. No. So there's still things you're gonna need to do Yeah. The content better. Yeah. I would love to be able to actually do do my show entirely with a lavalier, but the problem with the lavalier, it is that it just doesn't have the

same kind of quality. So I've got a little lavalier, And a lot of people now are just doing videos now holding their little tiny microphone in front of their mouths now more and more. That's Yeah. Been the hot thing to do. But that's kind of what I'm talking about as far as being able to to do this with a just a small mic that you maybe put on your lapel or something like that. It could be wireless. It could be anything

like that. And and we could actually just get rid of these things, right, and take them out of the picture. And and I think it would improve the quality of the video too, so so we don't have the the big hardware right in our faces. So so I was just trying to Yeah. Show that. It's, yeah. Absolutely. It's funny. As a as a product creator, it's really easy to fall into the trap of, like, how having a narrative in your head about, like, who the users are and who the people

are using your tool and kinda Right. What they have at their disposal. Right. And when you do it right and you talk to a lot of people, you learn a bunch of things you would've never realized or thought. I was talking to a correspondent who works with BBC, and they were telling me about, you know, when they have correspondents all over the world, the different regions that they're in bring different audio challenges. Right? So you're in The Middle

East. There's a lot of marble there, a lot of reverb in the interior spaces where you tend to record. Right. You know, Brazil, Latin America is similar. There's a lot of, you know, tile everywhere because of the the climate. In India, a lot of spaces are very small. And so, again, a lot of reverb. I talked to somebody who who made education content, they had a creator, in Africa, and they would record outside at night because that's when it was the quietest, but there

were crickets in the background. Right. So, like, the crickets were always in all the content. It's always something. And so, you just, you know, you start to realize that, you know, hey, even if you can get the fancy mic, a lot of you know, even if you're a professional, even if you're, you know, a BBC journalist, you're gonna be in places where

you're still gonna have challenges. Right? And so, again, I think that's, to me, the perfect place that, like, AI can help create, you know, the or or help people create content that would be hard to create otherwise. We also always hear the word save. It is so common that somebody goes to record something with somebody, and the loud valere isn't turned on or wired correctly. And the only audio they have is the mic audio from the camera. Yeah. We've all done that.

And so that's what they you know, that's what they're stuck with. But, yeah, you can enhance it and you can still use it. You know, we've had it just I won't name them, but there are several big name podcasters who have been saved by enhanced speech plenty of times because of hardware setups and, you know, glitches that happen throughout the show. Yeah. It's gonna happen. It's kinda funny because you guys may saw me moving around here. I figured out where the glare was coming from. It was coming

from the notes that Ravi sent over. You know, that white screen was enough to cause the glare. Wasn't the light at all. You know, I it's a it's an interesting time now, with so many people trying so many different things, you know, when it comes to to audio and you you look at TikTok and some of those believe it or not, some of some of the audio on TikTok is pretty bad because, you know, they just

Oh, yeah. They this is where they're you know, you know, they they're trying to record into a ring light and, you know, maybe they have a mic, maybe they don't. But I think there's lots of opportunities out there and, I I I'm kind of excited. So on Adobe Podcast Premium, it ties in Adobe Express. How are you seeing that utilization? Are the people using the Adobe Podcast product

and then they're going straight into Express? Or what what does the usage look like between those two those two products? Yeah. So far, what we see is is sort of maybe adjacent workflows or, like, people supporting kind of one way or another. So a hobbyist who uses Adobe Express to make videos and and graphics to support their Etsy business, decides to record voiceovers and podcast or or make a podcast about their hobby. We also see sort of the other way

around, right? So, people who record something and then you need cover art. So, the cover art in Adobe Express is a great place to do that. You know, there's a captions tool, within Adobe Express. And so, you know, I think over time, you'll see us do a better job of sort of integrating workflows across the two tools. But one thing that we've noticed sort of more broadly, just in the creative ecosystem is,

you know, you sort of mentioned TikTok. Like, there's a new generation of creator who is used to not having end to end workflows, who is used to using three or four tools to do each one of those tasks. Right. You know? So Right. They record somewhere, they edit somewhere, they use this tool to, like, create all the clips that they put on social, they use this tool to add the captions to them.

And so, you know, I think that our first point is to help expose the people who are using podcast to the things that Express can do for them even if, you know I think, same thing. Like, I think we can get obsessed at Adobe with, like it needs to be that you can, like, easily just transfer the project over here and keep working on it. But I think the starting point is also just the education of just, like, making sure that, you know, people know everything that they have,

available to them. And, you know, for I'm a little biased, but, you know, for $9.99 a month to have all of podcasts and all of Adobe Express avail available to you. Yes. It's amazing. It it is amazing. And if you do an a b comparison for people that are listening or watching this, and I think it's important to watch budget for for creators because what we see is usually the hosting part of the bill is the least expensive part of their entire budget. They're spending x number of dollars for

an AI tool. They're spending x number of dollars for an editor. They're spending x number of dollars for maybe a a headline or a Canva or whatever it may be. And the next thing you know, they've got a hundred dollars wrapped up in additional charges per month. Whereas that doesn't have to be the case. And I'm pretty you know, I I I I raised five kids. So and I was living in Hawaii at the time, so I was super budget budget conscious. And, because we had to make the dollars go a long ways.

So in order to reduce spend and have a product that is just as good, to me is important. So that's why, you know, I apply to you guys on that $9.99 price point. And I think that's where people should really maybe their eyeballs open up here a little bit. And and thinking about this, if you're starting to be, you know, especially with economy the way it is right now, be budget conscious. You know, I'll be honest with you. I'm a I I can draw stick figures, you know.

I could barely find my way around, you know, when it came to editing stuff in Photoshop or whatever years we go, it's just like I would screw things up more than I would fix things. So for me, a tool that is simple, templated, gives me what I need maybe isn't a masterpiece if I was an expert in all those other tools. But, you know, you can get pretty pretty doggone good and something that looks really super professional, at $9.99

a month. I think that's the for me, that's the thing that makes me say, wow. You know? Yeah. I mean, I think that's the, you know, the the product challenge for us too. You know, you mentioned earlier that, you know, you use 15% of any given tool. And I think with Pro Tools, that's, you know, definitely the case. But I think that's the case with mobile software. Just everyone kinda uses a different 10 or 15%. That's right.

So right? So our our game is sort of, can we across all the things you need to do to create this stuff Yeah. Can we have a good opinion on, like, what we believe the most important 10 or 15% of functionality across all those kinds of tools are? And then give just that to people, right, at, like, an an accessible price point to help them create whatever it is they need to create. Right? So it's it's you know, we all

spend a ton of time. You know, everyone on our team has has a a pretty big background in just tooling. And so we all are very opinionated on kind of what you know, how do we deliver on that promise? And, again, knowing that we'll always be able to maintain the certain level of simplicity because we have the pro grade tools. You know? A lot of a lot of our tools are fighter jets. Right? It's like getting in the cockpit of a fighter jet when you open Photoshop. Yeah.

It is an amazing piece of technology. Right? It has created, you know, countless, you know, important works that are, you know, part of our culture. But there's a learning curve. And I'm just putting How do we And I'm just putting my number 10 or 15%. And I'm just putting text on an AI generated image, you know. So, you know, I'm using point 001% of Photoshop's ability where it can be done in the express and, you know, so

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's a it's a fun challenge as being somebody who, you know, builds products. Yeah. So this topic is really interesting because I was watching a a panel of, AI kind of experts and where they were seeing the, tooling that would be driven by AI as you look to the future. And and this one person I was hearing talk up on stage on a panel was from Hollywood. Right? Was from the movie industry.

And so what what he was doing was trying to create AI tools that matched with the expectations of the studios and how they like to produce movies. Right? So, you know, there are separate steps that go into every movie production. Right? And if you apply AI tools to do some part of each step of this, that that will fit in better with the human

workflow process. Or are we we doing this really because we're trying to fit in with the human workflow process, but eventually, we will come around to maybe not having so many steps and trying to connect those steps together. Is there any thoughts on that? Yeah. It's funny. We have this debate all the time on our team too, because I am very aware as somebody who's in their mid forties and has been using creative tools forever Mhmm. That I just have a certain way of

working. Right? Yeah. I almost never drag files. I'm a file picker guy. Like, we've had big debates where my you know, our experienced designers, like, I drag and drop everything onto the canvas. I was like, I don't think I ever do that. I always, like, go to file, click import. Right? I'm a picker too. Apple I. Yeah. Totally. I think right? So I I think that there's there's parts where, I don't I don't wanna be too much

of the generational guy. But I think, like, there are just when people are new to a workflow, there's an opportunity to, like, kind of rethink what it is. Right? And so I think when you see, you know, Hollywood studios and the way they create stuff and then opportunities for AI to to accelerate that workflow, that's obviously a huge opportunity. But then you see, you know, movies with a $6,000,000 budget, clean the award shows that was edited in Premiere.

Right? You know, last year, the editing award went to to, you know, another film that was also edited in in Premiere. Those those creators are gonna have, like, completely different workflows and different ways of thinking about this. And and they're now gonna, you know, sort of rise up in the industry, and they'll all be, you know, having huge productions at some point in their career. And so I think, like, it will also

change. Right? And so I also think there's an opportunity for sort of these, like, to it's an overused term, but, like, AI first. Right? Of, like Right. There's just gonna be opportunities to go record a bunch of stuff out there and just make it sound all as good as it can sound and then start there. And you don't have to worry about making sure that you're lugging around all this audio equipment. I think we're gonna have the same thing for

video. Right? I think, like, there's gonna be ways to kinda iterate much faster on, like, what shots look like that that an individual does in a tool like Premiere, right, versus sort of a more of a Hollywood studio kinda workflow. So I think you're gonna have both. Right? And I think I also think one one of the things that I'm super excited about is because of the nature of AI, it gets trained on what has happened in the past. Mhmm.

Right? And Yeah. I think what's gonna happen is certain AI outputs are gonna then just seem like they're AI. So even if they're not. Right? Like, I think that, you know, when you look at something like NotebookLM, right, and and, like, it's like it's very sort of, you know, NPR style conversational podcast of two people in the studio. Yeah. Even if you now have two people in a studio, I think people are gonna start to think some of that sounds like notebook l m and be like, oh, this is

AI. So I think people are gonna start creating, like, different approaches to stuff in different formats. Like, to me, almost like the the notebook l m mold of of a tool. Of AI. Right. It's what you're saying? It's breaking the mold. Right? I I think that, you know, AI generated images that are sort of, like, fantastical and have a lot of, like, light blues and light pinks in them, and that everybody kinda just, it looks like AI now. Yeah. And so I think you're

gonna have, that sounds like AI. That kinda looks like AI video. And so I think you're actually gonna have a whole bunch of people doing new stuff. You know? This whole, like, I think AI avatars and the social media videos, all that tooling is gonna make all of that stuff look like it's AI generated, which is gonna make people create something completely different. Right? And so I think it is gonna, like I think people are gonna just continue

to break the mold. And so I think social media content will look different, podcasts will sound different, Movies will start to look different because everything is you know, a whole bunch of things are gonna start to feel like AI, and people are gonna wanna break that mold. And I think so. I think that's kind of what I think is super exciting about about where we're headed with those. If if we take it Do you see Adobe playing a role in that? Yeah. I think, you know, I think Adobe

can play a bunch of roles. You know, I think Adobe can definitely play the role of there's a Hollywood end to end workflow, and we can help make it more efficient in a bunch of places. I think we're gonna have a a bunch of tools that let anybody create really professional looking content. And then I think, you know, back to kinda where we started, we're gonna have the tools that people are gonna help break the mold with. One of my favorite things is, I guess, Illustrator now is, I don't know,

thirty four years old, 35 years old. When Illustrator first came out, its tagline was, we don't even know everything it can do for you. And, like, that to me is just like the guiding light of a creative tool. I'm just like, I don't even know what people are gonna do with this stuff. When we launched Enhanced Speech, people started taking it and, like, adding the artifacts to ambient music and, like, EDM.

Because, like, they actually like the roboticness of, like, the service getting something wrong. And so they like mixed it into a whole bunch of tracks. So there's a whole bunch of weird stuff, like people will create and break the mold. And so I think Adobe can sort of play a role in all of it, which is, you know, again, not to drink the Kool Aid too much, but it's a super fun business to to be part of. But if we bring it back down to basics, I'll be kind of frank, especially for new creators.

This is the people that I'm worried about the most is they get really overwhelmed. We're talking a lot of real cool stuff here. But I think what I've seen and at least my mindset is when it comes to Adobe Podcasts and Adobe Premiere, and excuse me. Adobe Express is the ability for someone that, again, is getting started. They're new. They're gonna get in. They're gonna record their podcast. They

have a simple editing tool. They got this great way to get enhanced audio out, and it's a process that doesn't take a lot of time. A lot of a lot of content creators today get so far in the weeds. Oh, I I edit for four hours on my show. If I had to edit for four hours, I would have quit nineteen years ago.

I I just couldn't have done it. So we want people to focus on the content, allow the tools to, you know, get them to the point where they've got a great sounding podcast without having to spend five hours editing something and they get wrapped around the axle. Let let's let them get five years into the content or three years into the content before they get completely wrapped around the axle and doing three hours of editing or have someone to hire that does that editing.

I think there's got to be a point in the beginning and I think the thing I always tell content creators, just hit record. Let's get it recorded. Do minor editing. Let's get it out the door. The product's gonna change. Your first step tenth episode is not gonna sound like your first and so on and so forth. And I think this was my major appeal with Adobe podcast was that it wasn't to me wasn't overwhelming. I took a new gal that we had working for us. Hey,

do a demo video real quick. Just go in, figure out how to use Adobe podcast. And like, she's like, well, that's easy. And I think that's the key. It's real easy. And you get a great product. Yeah. I think it's I think getting, you know, it's it's like how to write a great novel. Right? You just, like, write the first page and get started. So I think that, you know, we need to make it as easy as possible for people to create stuff. Again, I also think that the the tools and simplicity

sometimes changes the the form. Right? Like, I think now when you watch a lot of YouTube videos, like, you'll see a lot of jump cuts because a lot of people do text based editing. Yeah. Right? And and it's just become part of the format, and I think everyone's okay with it. Right? And so I think that, yeah, you kinda get started and you start. And and, you know, even back to some of the the AI stuff, like, I think the new creative journey is usually about mimicry.

It's usually about sort of wanting to create something that seems like the thing that that you enjoy. Yeah. Lin Manuel Miranda tells a great story of, like, the first time he ever went to go see a live musical was Rent. And he was like, and I immediately came back and wrote a whole bunch of things that sounded exactly like Rent. All right? And then you sort of find your own voice. And so I think that easily accessible tools and AI help people start the creative journey.

And usually that's gonna be mimicry of some sense, right? Of like seeing the kinds of videos they see on YouTube, the kinds of podcasts that they listen to and get started there. And then, and then hopefully, instead of three or four years down the road where they get obsessed with the the the craft of editing, you know, maybe they get obsessed with, like, the craft of creation. And because the editing is so much easier, they can just, like,

push themselves and try different things. Right? And once you can create content much faster, you can just try a lot of different stuff. And so I think that that's, again, sort of what is, I think, exciting about this whole AI revolution, if you wanna call it that, is I think it's gonna make it so much easier for anyone to create stuff. And then I think it's gonna make it so much easier to, like, break the mold and bring out new stuff no one has seen or thought about before.

You talked a little bit about the l n notes. I think that's what it was. Right? The Notebook l n? Yeah. Yeah. And Yeah. You know, I could see right now you can hear that audio and just know immediately where it came from. But what I would foresee happening with that product is they may dumb it down a little bit to make it make peep make the voices make a mistake. You mean like, okay. The AI would not normally make a mistake. Was that an AI or was it not? So I Thought it's just a setting Yeah.

That you have to do. Yeah. More human like errors. Yeah. Have a have a sneeze in there or a cough or something like that or too many ahs and umms, you know. Have that, have that Yeah. Typical thing that we have with but again, at what point just like you guys and some of the tools that you've created is, you know, I I record my voice for three hours and or whatever it requires to train a product. And the next thing I know, I'm speaking French on some Yeah. I I don't know. I'm pretty I'm

pretty optimistic about this kind of stuff. Like, I I think when you create this kind of AI content, I I think you should not try and, like, mimic that they're humans. Oh. Right? I think that's gonna I think that falls apart fast. Right? Yeah. Again, like, even now when you listen to it and and it's, you know, kind of been in the public consciousness for, what, six months, it has a sound. Right? And so I think that nobody wants to listen to AI that they think are humans.

But and and I think some of the conversational artifacts that they put in there with the umms and the ahs, I actually think that goes away because what I want out of a tool like that is, like, I wanna dump, like, all my educational content into it. And then I wanna, like, listen to that when I walk to class, right, or, like, when I'm driving to, like, be able to consume information in a in a more efficient way or a more enjoyable way. So I think that that's where that stuff goes.

Right? And then I and then I think that, again, the human beings are gonna lean into creating stuff that feels very different and authentic. And I think that we may be in this middle ground where people are trying to get away with AI avatars that people think we're humans and stuff. Yep. But I think, like, as we all kinda get exposed to it, I actually

don't think that's what people want. Right? I think it's it's it's it's attractive because of, like, oh, content production cost cut down so much and Yeah. You know? But I think that stuff gets relegated to online learning and and, you know, the the the training materials that we have to watch all the time working in a big company. And then I think on the sort of social media side, there's a place for it, but I think

it it changes. I and I think, like, again, five, ten years from now, I don't think mimicking, you know, AI mimicking humans, is kinda where sort of entertainment plays itself. I definitely hope it gets separate out and marked. That's something that's important to me is to have it marked so that, you know, now I can tell if I watch a YouTube video and it's, you know, it's that voice you hear every time. I I immediately back out. I I think we're all going to be seeking

original voices. I think it's gonna become more important as time goes on. So podcasters, YouTubers, anyone that's creating original content, I think people are gonna seek that out because, like you said, I agree with you too. The AI stuff should be relegated to, you you know, the the one hour, training content you have to listen to, every quarter or whatever it is from from your company. So,

yeah. Who knows? Maybe But I but I think if if I had the option to, you know, watch shows from another country and another language that I couldn't watch other languages or, like, I love watching, you know, cricket highlights that aren't in English, and now I can Yep. Listen. So I think that and, like, I'll know it's an AI voice. I'm totally fine with that. I'm good with that too. But Yeah. It now

makes it more accessible. I think, again, like, I think this, like, makes the world sort of more, fluid and accessible and kinda open stuff up to other people, in a way that, you know, wouldn't happen without AI versus, you know, people trying to use AI to just kinda get one over on you and pretend it's a human being. There was a time when I was watching some foreign films or Italian specific kind of these dark dramas that were where it only came out

of Italy for a while. And and, of course, it was all subtitled. I would have loved to been able to hear that in that in English, you know. So I think yeah. Yeah. Right? There's a place. There's some there's some stuff that will get a budget that they can, you know, localize across different languages, but there's a lot

of stuff that doesn't. And so if you can use AI to build audiences and, you know again, and I think and going the other way too, you know, again, I think we always in a lot of these conversations, we think about, like, English centric and then being able to, like, put it in other languages so, people in other countries can listen to our stuff.

But the other way around. Right? Like, again, there's tons of creators in in Brazil, in India, in, you know, Mexico, Turkey who could, you know which are, by the way, like, the four countries that are the biggest for Adobe Podcast after The US. That can create a bunch of stuff that

is then in English. And then not only can English audiences appreciate it, but then you can also run English ads against it so those creators can, you know, make better ad rates, like, a whole bunch of kinda stuff that just, like, changes, I think, what the sort of online economy around content creation and and and viewing looks like. And there's a series of, Portuguese podcasts that are they get massive numbers and million listeners per episode designed for factory workers.

And I've always wanted to listen to one of those shows and to understand what what are they saying to keep these people listening three hours to a three hour program every day. You can hear the excitement in the voice, but I don't speak Portuguese. So I just I kinda have to wonder, you know, is it have comedy? Is it you know? And again so I think there'll be the ability then to learn from other content creators and learn learn new ideas from different countries too.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Right? And then and then every country has their version of the podcast for factory workers that is based on sort of, you know I mean, we see it with with television all the time. Right? Yeah. There's, you know, America's Got Talent is in every country and every language. And so I think you're gonna see that down the stack at the podcast level, you know, as as kind of the stuff becomes, more prevalent. Robbie, getting more questions for Mark before we let Mark go?

Well, yeah. I just I was just thinking about something too. So something that I've seen happen a lot with video on on YouTube lately is these compilation videos, right, where people are pulling real world video from from libraries and then tying them together with a a story of sorts, right, that

changes and transitions and things like that. And so I think those videos I've seen that actually are real human characters in there, but maybe an AI voice or a compilation that is generated by AI of human voices, that are actually talking about a specific topic and how AI can kind of, like, mix and match and create something new out of something that's preexisting or, or that already has been produced by a big creator or something like that is

what I'm seeing. Like I've got up on my screen right right now a video that's doing the exact same thing as that. It's got a hundred thousand views or or that kind of thing. So I think that there is kind of AI generated content that will drive, audience. It's just, you know, what's the topic? What's the relevance of the topic? And how trusted is the the source for that? And how good is it produced is going to be the other element here. And is some of those video and some of that audio

AI generated or or not? So I think that there there may be a hybrid of what we're talking about here, which is the combination of AI plus human creators kind of collaborating together to create content. So it's gonna be Yeah. I think, you know, I think the AI workflows we was gonna talk about with this human in the loop. Right? Where there's, like, a human who's part of it that,

I think, again, is, yeah, super necessary. And I think, these kinds of tools, like, are gonna open up new kinds of content that wouldn't have been made otherwise. I do also think that it's gonna also lead to a lot of slop. Right? There's gonna be just a lot of slop. That's the new term now, slop. Right? Yeah. It is. I I remember so my my daughter is now 11, and I remember when she was, I don't know, three, we made the mistake of of putting on YouTube. It was the first time she ever

watched it. And it was some, like, animated little, you know, nursery rhyme video. And then, like, two videos in, there was just, like, a creepy version of that kind of thing with, like, an obvious, like, synthetic voice singing a song and just obvious, like, bad three d graphics. And I was just like, oof. And so that that was the beginning and the end of her YouTube watching career. So there's also gonna be a lot of

that. Right? Because for a lot of the, you know, the possibility of of of making one of those videos that gets a hundred thousand views, a lot of that's gonna come from making, like, a million of them. Right. And so there's just gonna be a lot of stuff out there that is also completely unwatchable. I call it the new forum spam. You know, that's what it really is. It's it's it's video spam. Video spam. Companies are gonna be using this this technology to produce promo videos for all

sorts of different things, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. And this is all side of it. I I guess this is also just the nature of media and the nature of creation. Right? I mean, this is, you know, there's always gatekeepers who owned the studios, who were in charge, owned all that actors and actresses, right? And kind of then TV, then cable. Like, it just, it always goes down, right? And so I think that you're we're definitely living in a world of, like, abundance

when it comes to content. Love it. And I think, you know, a mix of of the platforms, and audiences and people kind of just continue to sift through it. So there's always a learning curve. There's going to be a lot of slop out there for a while, but, I don't know. I think we're going to get better new original sort of stories and, things that we've never seen before sort of coming out the other side of this. Well, it it's definitely gonna be exciting time,

for sure. And, you know, any projections then on Adobe Podcasts and Adobe Premiere I mean, Adobe Express. Excuse me. Again, I keep for some reason, I keep going back to Premiere. You know, what it's looking like for the next year. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that the two big focuses we have, is yeah. I think video is gonna become a bigger and bigger part of the workflows and and the platform itself.

And then back to sort of the way I had described our AI vision of just like, let's look at all these things that take a lot of time, either setting up or in the editing process, and how can we use AI to solve that for people and make it much easier? So, you know, people have that across a whole bunch of different things when it comes to creating clips, enhancing video, right? Making it look good, you know, solving dropouts.

So I think that, you know, we'll continue to collaborate with Adobe research pretty tightly and making sure that, you know, we can just help people create great stuff, without needing to be a pro or have tons of time or big budgets to get that stuff done. Awesome. Rob, do you have anything else for Yeah. I was just gonna ask, let's let's talk about kind of how a person would, sign up and what they would get, as part of you know, it looks like that there's two plans. There's a free plan,

and then there's a premium plan. You know, if you could talk a little bit about the free plan and what people get with that and how that works. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's a pretty, like, affordable and open platform in general. So it's a freemium product. Right? So there is a free version that can be free forever, that you can use, and then there's a a premium version if you upgrade. And even that has a thirty day trial

on it. So the free version, you can, record unlimited record, but exporting up to thirty minutes up to two projects a day. On, enhanced speech, you can enhance up to an hour's worth of stuff every day for free. If you, you know, record in in, studio, you can enhance it there. If you have something you've already recorded a piece of audio, you can upload it. And then premium is really about sort of almost like how how much time

do you have. You know? Like, there's a lot of stuff you could do in the free version if you have a lot of time on your hands. But if you, you know, need to to work faster, get stuff out quicker, that's where in premium, we have additional sliders. We have video support so you can upload a video directly, not just the audio like you can in free. Unlimited recording, unlimited, exports. We launched something called audiogram. So if you have piece of audio, you can share that

on social. It creates a video with the animated transcript. So, you know, and then of course the $9.99 plan also comes with Adobe Express. And Adobe Express Premium has, you know, hundreds of thousands of templates for logos, for graphics, a video editor, motion graphics. I mean, pretty much and you you could build an end to end marketing department with, podcast and express for what you get for for $9.99. So it's, it's pretty pretty solid

deal that I feel pretty good about. So is the service, based on a a browser usage model, or is there an app associated with it? Yeah. So it's actually all browser based. Yeah. So it's all based on the web. So, you know, Express as well. So, you know, Express has a mobile app you can download, but it the rest of the Express experience, yeah, is on the web. So, yeah, there's no software to download. And so it's sort of really easy to use.

The whole recording and editing experience for podcasts lives on the desktop browser. But you can, use, enhanced speech to take any video off your phone, make it sound really good, if you have premium. So, yeah, it's a it's a it's a mix of capabilities that, again, sort of, I think, because of the way we launched this, everything that we've added has been based on listening to users and what they need and learning how they were using it.

And then, how we've decided to charge for it was, you know, you get an hour free of enhanced speech every day, you know, and you can come back every day and get another hour. So, you know, thirty hours a month for free. It's pretty good starting point. It is. But people who are, you know, again, sort of, I think, working intentionally and have things they need to get done, I think premium is is kind of the place for them. And for and for $9.99 a month. Come on.

It's the best it's it's a fantastic deal. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Be it. Yeah. Mark, I wanna thank you for coming on. Is there is there I don't want you to necessarily give your email, but is there a good way to reach the Adobe podcast team? Or is anything or just contact So you can, you know, at, yeah, podcast.adobe.com is where the, app is located. There's a contact section there, but anyone can always email us at [email protected]. Awesome. And we read and look at every

email that we ever get. So feel free to reach out. Hey. Thank you for being with us late tonight. We definitely appreciate it. And, much success. And we'll we'll check back in a year and see where the product is and, look forward to the, additional enhancements. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Appreciate the conversation, guys. Hey. Thank you so much. Thank you. So, Rob, any specific news that, we have seen that we need to cover before we bust out of here today? I don't know. I don't think so. I

mean, I think I don't know. There's only, like, five minutes left, so I don't think we have enough to go too deep on anything. Alright. I guess We can just call it a a day here. Yeah. I guess what we'll do is yeah. So everyone, thanks for for tuning in today. And, here. I got this on the screen. I think I do. Let me move this over here. Getting used to this, as so yeah. I'm fumbling. Sorry. Okay. The only thing that's been bubbling is this whole discussion about Spotify and Oh, yeah. Video.

Yeah. We we could spend some discussion on that next week for sure. Keeps spinning up there, and there's a lot of this is this is a pretty important topic for the the podcast landscape. So Yeah. And if you don't know what we're referring to, there's a, article on Pod News that links to a LinkedIn article that has gotten a lot of attention today.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's all about, you know, the issues that we've been talking about in this show for, I don't know, probably a good close to a year now, probably, about how Spotify is allowing people to upload video to replace their audio and that's And some people losing money. Yeah. So Yeah. Which, you know and I've had some conversations with people off the record that don't wanna go on the record that are, you know, heavily concerned about this particular issue. So but anyway And I saw the

yeah. And I saw that the Evergreen Podcast Network launched a an experience on, Roku on the video side. Oh, really? So people are back to building Roku apps. That's funny. Well, I know you spent a lot of years doing that too in the early years. Yeah. We were interesting. So we were at twelve, thirteen, and 14 on the Roku. So third party app. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's funny how we're coming full circle again. Here it is.

The whole video thing is really becoming something and I don't think we've seen the end of this either. I think it's gonna continue to spin. Yeah. Alrighty, Brady. I'm [email protected]. I'm at geek news on x. I'm at [email protected]. Rob? I'm on x, at Rob Greenlee, on YouTube at Rob Greenlee, on Facebook at Rob Greenlee. And so I'm easy to find on LinkedIn and as well. And if you wanna send me an email, you're certainly welcome to send it to [email protected]

and that'll get to me. So I don't have our, AI disclosure, but just, raw here. Any AI tool can use and index our our content here and use for your training models. We authorize you to, to do that. So Awesome. I think pretty good run on this first try here, and gonna make a few tweaks next week. But otherwise I think it went smooth. Yeah. I think it went smooth. We'll see how the recording turned out. Little bump at the

beginning with audio. I need to check that out, but I fixed it really quickly. So I've got backup upon backup of recording today. So we got a good capture one way or the other. So, but anyway, thanks for being with me, Rob, and, we'll see you, a week from today. Okay. Sounds great. Alright, everyone. Thanks for being here. Bye bye.