India-based audio sequence platform maker Pocket FM goals to be the Netflix of audio. That’s, the corporate intends to match its audio sequence with tons of of episodes to its customers’ tastes. For that to work, it must launch content material quickly — one thing it’s now turning to AI to assist with.
The Lightspeed-backed startup is giving its writers an AI device set that may do issues like counsel higher endings to an episode or make the narrative extra participating. The hope is that the instruments will velocity up the storywriting course of.
Pocket FM already makes use of some AI instruments like ElevenLabs to generate voices for audio sequence. It additionally examined AI instruments for writing and adaptation help internally.
Rohan Nayak, Pocket FM’s founder, stated it’s rolling out the AI instruments to all writers, so it’s going to take them much less time to complete their episodes.
The writing device, dubbed CoPilot, can be utilized to assist any author create a narrative.
CoPilot can remodel narrative-based writing into dialog-based writing for a selected section. It will possibly additionally do “beat evaluation” to form the writing in a approach to makes it extra participating for an audio sequence of a specific style. The device moreover has fundamental chatbot-style writing options corresponding to “shorten,” “increase,” and the flexibility to generate textual content by way of a immediate.
To construct CoPilot, the corporate examined 1000’s of hours of knowledge factors to grasp what makes customers have interaction extra with a specific storyline in a selected style.
Primarily based on that, it added writing suggestion options designed to extend battle between characters and suggest endings for an episode to make it extra thrilling. AI may also counsel tags for background results that can be utilized whereas producing the audio.
The device can routinely generate bios of characters, their relationships, and summarize plot factors of various episodes, permitting creators to refer again to those particulars whereas writing.
CoPilot additionally has a evaluation device, which checks for plot factors, grammar, and leaves qualitative suggestions by feedback on an episode.
Underneath the hood, Pocket FM is coaching smaller fashions to keep up context for a narrative for character arcs and relations, together with narrative consistency. Plus, using indicators from customers, the startup is nudging AI so as to add extra drama to the story.
Worldwide growth and localization plans
Alongside the arrival of the AI instruments, Pocket FM launched adaptation instruments for numerous markets that not solely translate the textual content from one language to a different but additionally change names and phrases which can be extra suited to that area’s tradition.
The corporate first debuted this device as part of the CoPilot suite in Germany earlier this yr to transform tales from different areas after reportedly struggling to have interaction customers within the European nation final yr.
Nayak stated the corporate noticed nice outcomes from this trial, with a relentless improve in month-to-month in-app income, which crossed $700,000 in June.
“After we began increasing into new areas, it used to take us 12-18 months to meaningfully exist in that market. You must have no less than 1,000 hours of content material to start out buying customers and scaling the market. Now we will do that in lower than three months,” Nayak stated.
The device elevated author productiveness by as much as 50% for the German market by way of present output. Plus, the device helped the corporate create extra error-free drafts of the reveals that resulted in greater consumer retention for audio sequence.
Within the U.S, sequence created with the assistance of those new AI instruments are actually contributing 10% of playtime. Plus, these reveals have generated $7 million in income within the final 12 months whereas lowering the price of manufacturing by 2-3 occasions.
Constructing tech to scale content material era
Because of adopting totally different AI options internally, Pocket FM has been capable of scale the content material shortly. The startup stated it launches near 1,000 pilots per thirty days. And simply the sheer quantity of content material leads to a couple of of them turning into hits.
However the audio present is only one half. The corporate is already engaged on instruments to transform tales into comedian strips with its Pocket Toons platform. Plus, Nayak stated video is a potential format the corporate may discover, too. The startup, which has raised over $196 million in funding throughout rounds, is experimenting with a micro drama app as properly.
By subsequent yr, Pocket FM desires to launch its personal singular massive language mannequin (LLM), which might be based mostly on knowledge collected from its reveals and incorporate totally different instruments like writing help, adoption, dramatization, and story context retention. The corporate stated that when it switches to its personal LLM, it gained’t want to coach a ton of small fashions for separate options.
AI’s potential downsides
Adopting AI has had its unintended effects.
Pocket FM has already laid off individuals who had been workers or contractors throughout a number of rounds within the final 12 months. There have additionally been reviews of writers seeing diminished returns over time. And the corporate is going through lawsuits in California over employment and wage points.
“Like most content-led industries, we work with a various community of writers, voice artists, and manufacturing companions on a mission foundation, tailoring assets to every market. AI has had minimal influence on our core inventive neighborhood; as an alternative, it has opened new avenues to increase attain and output,” an organization rep stated, in response to those layoffs.
There are questions round high quality, as properly. The corporate measures high quality by the retention numbers of a present.
The bottom argument is that the brand new AI instruments act as a writers’ room even for solo creators, so they’ll be capable of produce extra content material at a speedy fee. Plus, based mostly on the numbers, writers can shortly edit the story with the assistance of AI. Nevertheless, these instruments can very properly induce “AI slop” — or low-quality, AI-generated content material — into the platform and will influence a consumer’s suggestions, making it troublesome for them to find good tales.
Pocket FM argues that tales which have a strong construction will achieve recognition, regardless of AI serving to them.
The corporate famous that each piece of content material is reviewed by its AI-powered moderation framework to make sure high quality and originality. It additionally claims its AI moderation checks for issues like duplication, copyright points, content material well being, and different high quality measures earlier than approving audio to go reside. Every present receives and equal push, and consumer engagement in the end determines a present’s rating.
One other concern is that writers may turn out to be overly depending on AI over time.
In Germany, AI is writing extra content material than people per present for choose titles. With Pocket FM’s plans to roll out extra AI instruments, the quantity of AI-written content material may improve. And with that, the expectation of churning out extra reveals may rise, too. Except consumer adoption additionally rises quickly, common returns may drop.
The corporate didn’t instantly tackle TechCrunch’s questions on returns, however stated that its AI instruments can velocity up a author’s work and assist them edit an episode based mostly on numbers and viewers suggestions. That’s they may make focused enhancements, as an alternative of doing a full rewrite.
“This fashion, quicker content material creation doesn’t essentially dilute high quality or relevance; it simply shifts the author’s function in the direction of modifying, refining, and steering extra productive output,” a spokesperson stated in a press release.
