How Google Is Using AI to Turn Your Daily News Scroll into a Personalized Podcast

Google wants you to press play on an AI-created podcast instead of scrolling for your daily news.

The tech giant can now take what it knows of your interests through your Search and Discover histories and create a 5-minute podcast tailored just for you that summarizes news stories of the day that you might be interested in.

Related: I Tried Making an AI-Hosted Podcast with Google’s NotebookLM. It Worked Surprisingly Well.

Google began testing the personalized, AI-created podcasts, called “Daily Listen,” through Search Labs, the program that allows users to experience early-stage experiments, reports 9to5Google. The new experiment began rolling out on Wednesday to Android and iOS users in the U.S.

The basis of Daily Listen is Google Search data and interactions that users have had with content on their Google Discover feeds. Using that data, the AI figures out which news articles a user would want to hear about, and summarizes those stories into an audio overview.

Daily Listen gives users a text transcript of the 5-minute podcast and control to pause, mute, rewind, or skip to the following story, per The Verge.

Google told TechCrunch that Daily Listen is meant to help users stay updated on topics they care about.

^{Photo Credit: 9to5Google/Google}

Users with access to Daily Listen will see the section pop up on their home screen on the Google app. Tapping the Daily Listen card under Search will launch the podcast.

The podcast concept is similar to Google NotebookLM’s audio overviews, which are AI-hosted podcasts that turn textbooks, study notes, and generally any collection of sources into a podcast discussion between two AI hosts.

We tested NotebookLM and were surprised by how well it worked. The end result sounded like a podcast between two human beings, with perfect pacing, tone, and delivery. It was nearly impossible to tell that the podcast was narrated by AI.

Related: Google’s CEO Says AI Is Now Responsible for 25% of ‘All New Code’ Created at the Company