Spotify is working on technology that will use AI soundalikes of its popular presenters to read advertising copy during its podcasts.

This development was revealed by Bill Simmons, CEO of The Ringer, who sold its podcasting network to Spotify in 2020 for close to $300 million.

“I don’t think Spotify is going to get mad at me for this, but we’re developing that stuff,” Simmons told The Atlantic editor Derek Thompson, during a recent episode of the Bill Simmons podcast.

“There is going to be a way to use my voice for the ads,” he continued.

“You have to obviously give the approval for the voice, but it opens up, from an advertising standpoint, all these different great possibilities.”

This makes sense from a marketing and workload point of view, but ad reads are often a point of difference for podcasts, and mirrors the ‘ad reads’ heard on commercial radio. Removing this personalised element may make advertisers baulk.