The Podcast Playbook for 2026 | AI, Video & Community Explained by Kendall Breitman from Riverside

0:00Ian Shepherd:If you told me five years ago that I'd still be recording this podcast, I'd have been really happy. Back then, the business of creators was an audio-only show and growing an audience felt incredibly difficult. Riverside completely changed how I produced the podcast. It made recording, editing and publishing videos so much easier. And it's played a big role in helping the show reach a much wider audience on YouTube. And in this episode, I sit down with Kendall Breitman, head of community at Riverside, to talk about the future of podcasting, AI, and what's new in Riverside 2.0. I would say that the big opportunity right now is community.

0:35I think that the mistake that people are making is not going into it with a plan. So people are using AI to take out the things that they don't like to do.

0:44Ian Shepherd:If you're creating a podcast, building a media business, or simply want to grow your audience more effectively, I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Let's jump straight into it.

0:59Ian Shepherd:you've spoken with thousands of creators what are the biggest changes you've noticed in podcasting over the last few years actually like i i was just at the the london podcast show recently the podcast show in london and what i've really noticed what stood out to me is i think that there used to be this whole push kind of for creators to treat themselves like media companies by that I mean there was about sponsorships it was about ads like there was such a push for that before when it comes to monetization it comes to how people are structuring their podcast and kind of the ecosystem that's around it and what I'm noticing now is that people are treating it much more like a creator economy like how can you monetize your audience how can you build a subscription service a community around it a newsletter which I'll also kind of get into as we as we keep talking but that's been a big shift that i've noticed is that the conversation was so almost these little like mini media broadcast services and now it's rather than kind of kind of trying to be that and fitting themselves into that place now i think that the industry is kind of carving a place out for itself rather than kind of copying what's been done in the past with media i don't know do you agree have you seen that yeah no absolutely i was at that same show And I think what was a podcast formerly was very much sort of audio based.

2:23Ian Shepherd:And now it's much, much bigger. I'm curious to understand what opportunities you think creators consistently underestimate when it comes to podcasting. So I know that I'm ahead of community, so it seems like I'm biased on this question, but I really do believe in what I'm about to say. Community. I think that it used to be how many download numbers you have, like that kind of thing. but now it's about influence in a community space. Are the people that are listening to you also kind of coalescing around this topic? Because if you are looking for something like sponsorships and ads, then if you can say, hey, I have this really engaged community of really passionate people around the specific topic, that's one thing.

3:05But also it can lead to kind of these owned audiences as far as newsletters, things like that. But I would say that the big opportunity right now is community. Like I'm speaking to more and more creators who tell me when I talk to them about how they monetize, they're like my Patreon, for example, is where I get a lot of my income from. It's how I was able to go full time. I think that more people need to be focusing on how they can build a space for their audience beyond their YouTube channel, beyond their podcast, and have it be something that people can call us around and i'm not saying like the kendall show community it's like what is what is the kendall show about is it about creators and how to monetize okay then it's a community about creators who help each other monetize what is the topic that you're talking about and what within it can make people can make people connect with each other

4:03Ian Shepherd:Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with that. And in a world of AI and AI produced content, I think that community is a real moat for creators. So it's something that everybody should be thinking about in some form. Now, there's lots to talk about today. I really want to start at the basics of podcasting. Podcasting has obviously been around for a very long time. But in 2026, what's the biggest mistake first time podcasters make? I think, so I know a lot of people are like, just hit publish, which is great. Just hit publish. But I think that the mistake that people are making is not going into it with a plan.

4:38It's very easy to think that your plan is, okay, I'm going to create a podcast or a video and I'm going to, what is a podcast anymore? If not, you know, but side note, basically like what I'm saying is that people go into it, they want to create their piece of content. and then they want to throw a bunch of reels out there and see what sticks. And that's great, but it's time consuming. I think that people need to go into creating content with more of a plan. So for example, a good plan could be that I'm going to create this hour-long episode, but then I know that I want to, throughout my show, I want to split it up into different sections.

5:21Why? Because then I'm going to take each section and make it its own kind of segment, 10 minute video that I'll put on YouTube. And that I'm gonna make it really SEO specific. So how to, what podcasters or creators are missing today in 2026, whatever. Our SEO team would say that that's not specific enough for SEO, but we're winging it here. The idea here is that what I'm doing instead of saying, okay, I'm gonna create a bunch of reels is that I come in with a strategy for how to grow. So is that strategy off the bat going to be creating segments that so people can discover my show is it going to be that i want to create a community and have people join that community and maybe that's not from your first episode but kind of having an idea of okay this is where i'm starting but where am i going what do i want to do what is my strategy to get there i think that that is something that people are missing when they start if they want to become successful in it.

6:22Ian Shepherd:Very wise words there. Now, I think having a vision is so important. Once we're past that, having seen so many different podcasts, what are the characteristics that really make them grow quickly? I think when people lean into their voice, I think that people connect with hosts and it's great to have incredible guests if you are on a guest podcast, but I think that people underestimate how much people connect and continue to come back to your show because of the host. So having a voice, having a way that you want to talk about things, not making yourself the center of it, because if you have guests, that's what you want to do is really converse with them.

6:58But people come back to you because they like your questions and the way that you think about things. So I would say that is, first of all, something that people can kind of do from the beginning. But I think that successful podcasts and this content in general are ones that know who their audience is, maybe even before that audience grows or like really is created in the first place. So for example, my audience could be creators, but like, what are they, like, that's a lot of people. What are these creators caring about? Are they anxious about AI coming and not knowing where the industry is going?

7:40Are they hungry to monetize? What emotions are they feeling? How can you generate content that speaks to that? So if you're not going to niche down, I'd say, in your topic, niche down in understanding who your audience is and how you serve that and how you speak to that, what guests you have on, what episodes you have. Because I think that the most successful podcasts are ones that connect with people. And so you need to have that method of connecting with them.

8:11Ian Shepherd:It makes absolute sense, being very thoughtful just about what you're producing and why you're producing it. Even like with community, that was a big thing. So when I started at Riverside, I was like, creators want to connect because they want to network with each other. And then I learned that creators want to connect because they want to learn from each other and support each other and hear about what other people are doing. So there's the assumption of what your audience will be. But then you kind of have to figure out going on Reddit, for example, going on other community boards. It's just seeing what are people actually hungry for?

8:42What are the conversations that are actually happening? So whether it's community, whether it's podcast, which is all kind of becoming similar, I think, yeah, I think that it's such an important part of it.

8:53Ian Shepherd:That's great advice. Now, we've already spoken about how podcasting is evolving, but how much has video changed podcasting? 100%. It's, I mean, in some ways, yes, in some ways, no. So I would say in as far as video, I like to think that there's kind of two parts of it So one is that video is great for being able to get your content on social media Am I saying that everybody's going to watch the full episode video? Maybe some people are still going to prefer that audio experience and just pop on their headphones and enjoy your episode on their commute But posting kind of the teasers and the clips you need video to be doing that now And so I think that more and more creators are leaning into, okay, if I'm already recording, let's have some video there so I can create that stuff for social.

9:41I think that a huge factor of it is also that YouTube is kind of like its own SEO search engine. Like no one's going on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and being like, how to build my community. But they are going on YouTube to do that. So I think that people are finding growth because they're going on YouTube to search for things. Whereas on Apple or Spotify, they're going to search for your show or for maybe the discovery page and understanding like similar content or discovering new shows maybe that way. But for YouTube and video, I think it's becoming so important because it's so search. It's much more like search friendly, discovery friendly.

10:23It's also just powering the new AI search when you like Google. but at the same time, I would also say, when I say like it's changed at 100%, I think that that's why people are focusing on video, but I think that when it comes down to it, what podcasting is all about is not going to be the B-roll and the graphics and all of that. It's just people having honest, long-form, thoughtful conversations. I think that that's what makes the medium so special.

10:50Ian Shepherd:Yeah, for me personally, and I've been recording this for five years now, it started audio only for about three years, and then I switched it to video. And the key reason was around discoverability. As you mentioned, on Spotify and iTunes, people couldn't find or they weren't searching for the podcast. It was just being recommended to them by my promotion. But with YouTube, people are on there finding it. And the views and the downloads, the audience for my podcast transformed overnight. And so I personally feel like it's a no-brainer. But I want to ask you that question. Like, is every podcast effectively a video show or should every podcaster record with video?

11:32I will say yes. I think that every podcast should have a video element for exactly what you mentioned, which is discoverability. If you want more people to find your show. The only reason that I'd say no is if it becomes a hang up for a creator. So if they're like, I wish I could get my voice out there, but I'm nervous to appear on video or it just now suddenly there's a barrier. I need to get a camera. I need to set up a studio. I need to whatever. If it becomes too much of a barrier that it gets in the way of you just creating, then start with audio and then see how you feel comfortable. And like you were saying, add video later.

12:06It doesn't have to be a day one thing. But I do think that eventually you should add video if you want your show to be discovered. So if it's keeping you from putting your voice out there, then like skip it for now and add that later as you kind of feel that comfort. But otherwise, then I'd say I'd say video is becoming just more and more important, especially as I said, like with kind of AI overview, it's prioritizing content with videos. It just, video is becoming so much more important on every social media platform, on search, all of it is just, we're seeing such a video transformation now.

12:41Ian Shepherd:Yeah. And for me, the biggest barrier was actually editing, editing the content until I discovered Riverside. But can you explain how Riverside has changed the process? Yeah, well, first of all, I was going to say for me, I feel like audio editing is always harder than video editing. But maybe that's because I used to do like video production. But yeah, it's funny to hear you say that. So how Riverside is kind of transforming the video space. Sorry, I was just taken aback by your difference in editing opinion than mine. Basically, like what Riverside has done is that I like to think of it in the beginning as we're kind of like democratizing the space.

13:19So it used to be that you'd have to have this multi-million dollar studio. You have to rent studio space. And that makes it so that so many less people can share their stories and be able to be empowered to create content. So now you just get the studio quality by recording from home. So it's all recorded locally. You get uncompressed audio, up to 4K video. And so beyond that, it kind of became, OK, what else can we do to make that process easier for people while still getting high quality professional content? Can we help them make clips? Can we add AI tools that will help? Like I was talking about audio editing before to help you get your audio to sound even better if somebody, I don't know, recorded on their laptop outside.

14:02Can we make it easier so that you can create a video that switches scenes? Can you maybe even chat with a with like an AI chat bot in there and say, hey, add B-roll when I talk about dogs i don't know how can we make it so that content creation can be professional and just really high level but kind of putting the barrier down so that more and more people can do it more and more people can get their voices out there and then earlier i was talking about this video being such a barrier to people so it's kind of trying to take down that barrier so that it's much easier and more approachable to be creating video.

14:41Yeah.

14:42Ian Shepherd:From my perspective, I guess I'm just explaining my thoughts there. What I really wanted was that professional view. And I found that I was using Zoom to record a video podcast initially. And I was having to manually flick between the different clips and bring it all together. Whereas I was found Riverside to make that so much easier for me and to your words really make it feel more professional and so often I would be interviewing someone just using their their laptop and the sound was really poor and I was trying to work out how to do that on zoom or some sort of editing software whereas it was all contained within Riverside and so it was you know it was a real game changer for me but um yeah I would like I feel like kind of zoom or those kind of platforms are really made for meetings whereas Riverside's made for creation so not only do you get like the high quality separate tracks but then on top of that you get clips made for you show notes made for you ai transcriptions all of these tools that make the video and audio much easier to publish to clip all of that so yeah it's really just like end to end trying to make every step of it easier for creators to create something that they can also be proud of and that just looks and sounds great and if someone's not familiar with just the importance of clips can you give an overview you of why that's so important in podcasting now?

16:03Yeah, so I think that it's about trying to be discovered by more people and having your content be discovered. So as we were talking about before, like when you're on a podcast, you're like when you're listening to one, you're not just getting, I mean, there's an ad or two, but you're not just like suddenly getting content that you may not have even asked for or searched for. Just like there's no algorithm built into podcasting. so the way that you can get in front of more people that are maybe interested in your content is by creating those clips for youtube shorts for reels for tiktok all of that but then on top of that it's just let's say that i'm a thought leader in the content creation space let's say and then you might not even know that i have a podcast but what if i continue to put out clips from really interesting conversations so maybe it's not even getting new followers it's people that already follow me and seeing, oh, that's a really interesting conversation.

17:00I want to hear more about it. So having somebody commit an hour of their time is a very big ask in the beginning. What you want to do is create clips, even segments now, as I was talking about before, kind of those like three to 10 minute videos on YouTube. That is a way to draw new people in. It's kind of like if a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, it's like trying to make your tree falling be heard. You like that comparison?

17:28Ian Shepherd:That's a great analogy. I love it. Thank you. But that in itself is sort of quite an industry of taking a full recording and clipping it and publishing it. And Riverside have just released some new tools for scheduling and publishing. Is that right? Yes. So basically, like when you were asking before about new trends in content creation, one of the new trends is that like having a podcast or having a channel just doesn't seem like enough anymore. I don't know if you felt the same way at the podcast show, but it was like, you need a blog, you need a newsletter, you need to be creating community.

18:01There's like so many different things that you need to be doing. And then on top of that, you're asked to be this kind of like miniature marketing team as well. You need to market your content too. And there is so much time that's involved in that. So how can we make that easier? How can we kind of make that flow much better? So for us, it's like, I can record my content on Riverside. It's either I can clip myself or there's our AI tool that clips it for you. And then, okay, right from Riverside, I can just say, hey, I want this to be scheduled to post on Instagram on Wednesday at 12 p.m. And so now you can do that full flow all in Riverside.

18:40So the social content planner is new. And basically what we've done is you're able to post right to social media and put your content out there without having to download it, put it to either your phone or maybe you're paying for another scheduler and then you're doing that whole process. It's just kind of trying to make it easier all in one to go from recording all the way to publishing and posting your content.

19:05Ian Shepherd:Yeah, no, it's super impressive and super helpful. Now, Riverside 2.0 has also just launched. Can you tell us about some of the new key features on that? Yeah. So it's kind of continuing to go down the path that we've been going down, which is that we are really plugged into what creators are asking for, what they need, where the industry is going. But also we are really creating a lot more AI tools to be able to help you get there while maintaining all of that control. So social calendar is one of the social posting calendars, one of them being able to go from making clips and then being able to post them right online.

19:46There's also, as far as like industries going, a lot of in-person recording and people saying, hey, I love using Riverside for recording remotely. And then having all of the stuff that's available to me afterwards, being able to clip, get my transcripts, all that. I want to use it when I'm in person too. I'm starting to kind of step up and want to record in a studio. So multicam, being able to have multiple cameras, multiple microphones, in-studio, kind of hybrid in-studio and remote, that's part of it. We released a brand new editor, so you're able to go much more granular and control all of your edits.

20:23So there's a lot that's kind of involved in the new editor. But really what we wanted to aim for was that you can do much more precision and much more control when you're editing. and a lot more opportunities. So it's a lot easier to kind of play with layouts and not be restricted to like limitations that you had before with set layouts. Basically the entire idea is that through AI tools and through just tools that are supposed to make your life easier, we're trying to make it so that your content creation is just faster and smoother.

20:53Ian Shepherd:Well, I really want to get my hands on it and also experiment with in-person multi-camera recordings. I haven't done that yet on this podcast. Beyond that, it's also kind of responding to where the industry is going, like I was saying. So beyond that, it is newsletters, being able to publish a newsletter straight through Riverside. Can your recording, yes it can, be transformed into a newsletter and then be able to have that be pushed out to your subscribers? Or can you have your own website through Riverside? Now you can. So you can put your website up, have it have all of your podcast episodes, all of your newsletters, which kind of becomes its own blog too.

21:30And then people can subscribe straight from there. We're also doing a lot of improvements for new features when it comes to hosting. So being able to push your video straight to Apple Podcasts, things like that. So that is all. It's about kind of this creator ecosystem that we're seeing that people aren't just creating their content anymore. They want a newsletter. They want a website. So how can we be serving that better to them? So that's also a huge part of what Riverside 2.0 is delivering.

22:00Ian Shepherd:It's absolute sense. And one of the things that I saw was the Claude MCP integration. Can you talk a bit about that and what that enables? Yeah. So in Riverside, we have something called Co-Creator. And basically you can chat with it and say things like, make my audio sound better. Or you can say, add B-roll when I talk about this or something like that. You can really edit through our chat. But what we've added is that there are people that are obviously using the Claude, using other AI tools that are really integral in their workflow. So what we're doing now is adding Riverside to those tools.

22:36So you can use your favorite tool. So for example, I love to use Claude and you can connect it to your Riverside and say, my recording on June 10th, I want to turn that into a carousel of posts. do that for me and it already has your voice and everything like that so basically we have a ton of ai tools built into riverside but there are also tools that people love to use beyond that and so we want to be able to make it as available as possible for people to create how they want to

23:04Ian Shepherd:create and where they want to create it that's so impressive i'm excited to to play with it yeah it's really cool to see the product team just like how much they're pushing out and how like creative people are being with their ideas. So it's definitely as a head of community, I get to communicate all of that to users. And I always say that it's like the best job because they get to do all the building and I get to have the excitement of announcing it and sharing it with people. So yeah, it's really exciting. Absolutely. And you're talking to creators all the time. What are you seeing them build or use AI for day to day?

23:37Mm-hmm. So I would say that there has been historically a push of, especially in our space, podcasting is such a human-centric thing for people. So it's really about these human, thoughtful conversations. People don't want to lose that. And I am completely here with you. But what is also human is the fact that we have only 24 hours in a day, and a lot of people are also not doing this full time. They have a job. And then on top of that, they're creating content or they're creating content as part of their job. And so where I think that where I've seen people using AI and what I think is just where it should be going is that people are using AI to take out the things that they don't like to do.

24:25So maybe it is, for example, like the Magic Clips. People love Magic Clips in Riverside. It's basically for anyone who doesn't know that will analyze your recording and say, hey, here are the most engaging moments of that recording. The key there is that while it cuts out that work for you, it also still gives you full control. So I can go into my Magic Clip and say, hey, that moment, let's cut out this. Let's put this instead. I can add my branding to it, which is automatically added, but maybe I want to make some changes to the design. It's not kind of like set. The whole name of the game that I feel like we're doing is that we want people to be able to use AI to make their workflow go faster, but we don't want it to let you lose control of what you're doing.