AI on Podcasts 2026: How Often Podcasts Talk About AI, and Which AI Companies They Name
About 4.8% of English-language podcast episodes published in 2026, roughly 1 in 21, have AI as a topic, based on a random sample of 29,915 transcribed episodes. AI is concentrated in a few genres: it comes up in 48% of Technology episodes and 17.1% of Business episodes, but almost never in Sports or TV & Film. OpenAI is the AI company podcasts name most, mentioned on 3,219 shows, followed by Anthropic (2,605).
Key findings
- 4.8% of English-language podcast episodes published January–September 2026 have AI as a topic, about 1 in 21.
- Technology (48%), Business (17.1%), News (7%) talk about AI most; Sports (0.1%), TV & Film (0.3%), Religion & Spirituality (0.4%) the least.
- OpenAI (3,219 shows), Anthropic (2,605 shows), Nvidia (1,104 shows), Google (997 shows) are the AI companies podcasts mention most.
- "AI agents" is still a niche podcast topic: about 1 in 600 episodes is tagged with it.
- AI companies are podcast advertisers too: Anthropic (Claude) (38 publishers), Granola (25 publishers), Wispr Flow (14 publishers) ran the most widespread AI ad campaigns.
How often do podcasts talk about AI?
In a random sample of 29,915 English-language episodes published in 2026, 1,425 (4.8%) had artificial intelligence among their main topics. That includes episodes about AI in general, specific AI products and companies, and "AI in" a field such as healthcare or marketing.
That makes AI a mainstream but not dominant podcast subject. The conversation is concentrated in a handful of genres, and "AI agents" as a topic is tagged in only 47 of the sampled episodes (0.16%).
AI on podcasts by genre
Nearly half of Technology episodes (48%) are about AI. In Technology podcasting, AI is close to the default subject. Business follows at 17.1%, then News at 7%. Outside those three, AI drops to low single digits: 3.1% in Education, 1.4% in Health & Fitness, and 0.1% in Sports.
Which AI companies podcasts talk about
| AI company or product | Company | Shows | Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | OpenAI | 1,954 | 2,876 |
| OpenAI | OpenAI | 1,760 | 5,711 |
| Anthropic | Anthropic | 1,670 | 5,118 |
| Claude | Anthropic | 1,502 | 2,769 |
| Nvidia | Nvidia | 1,104 | 2,466 |
| Gemini | 740 | 1,013 | |
| Hugging Face | Hugging Face | 362 | 499 |
| Perplexity | Perplexity | 319 | 421 |
| Cursor | Cursor | 287 | 411 |
| Google DeepMind | 284 | 419 | |
| Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft | 240 | 347 |
| Grok | xAI | 232 | 335 |
| xAI | xAI | 230 | 321 |
| DeepSeek | DeepSeek | 208 | 274 |
| NotebookLM | 122 | 163 |
ChatGPT is the single most-named AI product, mentioned on 1,954 shows. At the company level, OpenAI and Anthropic are far ahead of everyone else, each named on more than 2,500 shows. Nvidia, the main maker of AI chips, comes third. Developer-focused names such as Hugging Face and Cursor reach hundreds of shows, mostly in Technology.
What AI topics come up
When AI is tied to a specific field, the most common "AI in…" themes in the sample are marketing, healthcare, business, education, followed by music, law, workplace, finance. Much of the AI conversation is about applying AI to a specific job or industry, not only about the technology itself.
AI companies advertising on podcasts
| Advertiser | Publishers | Shows | Sponsor reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (Claude) | 38 | 40 | 172 |
| Granola | 25 | 27 | 197 |
| Wispr Flow | 14 | 16 | 93 |
| ElevenLabs | 11 | 13 | 63 |
| Perplexity | 8 | 8 | 55 |
| Gamma | 7 | 10 | 30 |
| Google Gemini | 6 | 6 | 37 |
| Lovable | 5 | 5 | 23 |
| Microsoft Copilot | 4 | 4 | 9 |
| Cursor | 4 | 4 | 14 |
AI companies are still small podcast advertisers next to consumer brands. The most widespread AI advertiser, Anthropic (Claude), ran reads with 38 publishers, against 327 for the top consumer sponsor, Quince (see our top podcast sponsors 2026 report). The AI advertisers are mostly productivity and creation tools, such as meeting notes (Granola), dictation (Wispr Flow), voice (ElevenLabs) and presentations (Gamma), aimed at the professionals who listen to business and technology shows.
How to use this data
- AI companies buying podcast ads: Technology and Business shows are where AI is already the conversation. Beyond them, AI is rarely discussed, which can mean either a less receptive audience or less competition for attention.
- AI founders and experts pitching guest spots: Business shows talk about AI far more than any genre except Technology, and they book guests on most episodes (see our guest statistics).
- PR and comms teams: track how often your company and its competitors are named on podcasts, not just in the press.
CastFox's Podcast Topic Search finds episodes by what is actually discussed in them, so you can see every recent episode that mentions a company, product or topic.
Methodology
Topic share. We took a random sample of the CastFox episode index (the same sample used in our episode-length report), kept transcribed English-language full episodes published January 1 – September 30, 2026 (29,915 episodes), and checked their AI-extracted topics. An episode counts as "about AI" if any of its main topics is AI-related ("AI", "artificial intelligence", "generative AI", "machine learning", "AI agents", "AI in healthcare" and so on). Bare "AI" is matched only in capitals, to avoid words such as "ai" in other languages.
Company and product mentions. We counted every 2026 English-language episode in the index whose transcript mentions one of about 30 AI companies or products as an organisation or product, not as a person's name. Product names are grouped under their company: ChatGPT and Sora under OpenAI, Claude under Anthropic, Gemini, DeepMind and NotebookLM under Google, Grok under xAI. 15,603 episodes from 4,906 shows matched. We rank by number of shows rather than episodes, so a few AI news podcasts that publish daily cannot dominate the ranking.
Advertisers. AI-native brands from our sponsor-read data (see the sponsors report for method), English-language episodes, January–September 2026. Software brands that added AI features but are not primarily AI companies are excluded.
Limits. Topics and mentions are extracted automatically from transcripts and capture an episode's main subjects, not every passing mention, so the true share of episodes that mention AI at all is higher. Only transcribed episodes are covered. Some AI-focused shows in the index are themselves produced with AI.
Cite this data
This data is free to use under CC BY 4.0. Please credit CastFox Research and link to this page.
CastFox Research (2026). AI on Podcasts 2026: How Often Podcasts Talk About AI, and Which AI Companies They Name. CastFox. https://www.castfox.net/research/ai-on-podcasts-2026
Download the full tables (CSV)
Journalists: for a custom cut of the data (a specific genre, country or show list), contact [email protected].
Frequently asked questions
How often do podcasts talk about AI?
In 2026, about 4.8% of English-language podcast episodes (roughly 1 in 21) have AI as one of their main topics, based on a random sample of 29,915 transcribed episodes.
Which podcast genres talk about AI the most?
Technology (48% of episodes), Business (17.1% of episodes), News (7% of episodes). AI is rarely a topic in Sports, TV & Film, Religion & Spirituality.
Which AI company is mentioned most on podcasts?
OpenAI, named on 3,219 English-language shows in 2026 including mentions of its products such as ChatGPT, followed by Anthropic (2,605 shows) and Nvidia (1,104).
Do AI companies advertise on podcasts?
Yes, though on a small scale so far. Anthropic (Claude), Granola, Wispr Flow, ElevenLabs ran the most widespread AI campaigns in 2026; the largest reached 38 podcast publishers.
How can I find podcasts that discuss a specific AI company or topic?
Use a topic search that reads transcripts rather than titles. CastFox's Podcast Topic Search finds episodes by what is discussed in them.
Can I use this data in my article?
Yes. The data is free to use under CC BY 4.0. Please credit "CastFox Research" and link to this page. A CSV of the full tables is available to download.