Anmol Satija – So hello and welcome back to the unthinkable tech podcast, the pulse on technology shaping our future. I’m your host and most at EJ and today we are here to discuss a massive shift happening right before our eyes. I’m talking about the changing landscape of media. Where is the media industry headed next? So think about it, how we consume news, entertainment and knowledge today has completely transformed over the last few decades.

Streaming platforms, AI-driven recommendations, and the rise of podcasts like this one are changing the way content is created and discovered. But where does it all go from here? So to answer these questions, we have Ahmed Saleem with us today. Ahmed is the CEO and co-founder of Poddyssey, where he’s solving one of the media’s biggest challenges, I would call it making podcast content truly searchable and accessible.

With experience in nearly 20 startups, expertise in AI and NLP, and even a background in geology. Yeah, you heard it right. Ahmed brings a unique cross-disciplinary approach to media innovation. So what’s next for media in this age of AI? Let’s find out. Hi, Ahmed. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Ahmad– Yeah, not to add more. How are you?

Where is media headed next?

Anmol Satija – I’m good, thank you for asking. So Emma, so to start off the conversation, I would like to say that it is fascinating to see how media has evolved over time. And we have gone from a point like from where, like from starting from print to radio and then to television. And now we are living.

In this digital first era where content is available on demand, is personalized, and even AI curated, right? But what’s really different today is the pace of change. It feels like every few hours something is happening and there’s a massive shift. Say for example, streaming disrupted TV, social media reshaped news and now AI is redefining content discovery. So from your perspective, what are the biggest forcing forces driving this innovation? Is it purely technological?

How technology is reshaping media?

Ahmad – I mean, I guess technology has a large part to play in it. Yeah, and like, I mean, if you look at any industry where technology has an impact, like technology often speeds up the rate of change. yeah, so media obviously is an industry or an entity that has had quite a lot of technological change. Yeah, like if you look at movies, movies are about a hundred year old phenomena, really, like commercial movies.

And if you look at how they were made in the 1920s compared to what they made now, yeah, it’s completely different. The advent of computers, the advent of how you could do, what is it, computer graphics and the way you could do certain things in that. So think all of that’s changed. So I think technology is definitely one. The other, I guess how technology impacts on social economic factors, I think that’s changed as well.

Yeah, I mean, I guess if you wanted to watch a movie in 1950s, you had to go to a movie cinema, which meant that you had to live in a city that had a movie cinema. Right now, I guess everyone has a smartphone. So the way that you can push the content onto a consumer has changed fundamentally in the way that I guess media organization can. I think technology definitely like the technology as in the way the media is created, I think has changed.

But I think the way that consumers can consume media through technology or social or economic factors has changed as well.

Why attention spans are shrinking?

Anmol Satija – Right. That’s interesting breakdown, Aymat. And you are absolutely right. Of course, there are multiple factors involved. And another thing would be that our attention spans has also taken a hit, right? And we have gone through sitting for a long form of content. And then just now, skimming through short videos, 30 second videos and then also we are expecting engagement right there.

Ahmad – Yeah, I mean, guess, yeah, like definitely the content length, I think has changed drastically. I always wonder, you know, is that a function of that we want to consume shorter content or is that there’s too much content so we can’t consume everything that we want to consume? Yeah, like I’m not sure which like, you know, which came first, right? It’s like a chicken and the eggs scenario. You know, like, is it because we are so attention deficit that we can only consume three minute clips?

Or is it that we wanted to consume three minute clips? That’s why we only consume three minute clips going forward. But yeah, think from that aspect, I guess it’s interesting. There’s certain videos that have done really well. Video as a format, I think, has done well from short videos. The rise of TikTok and Instagram, I think, has definitely been in that kind of sphere.

But then there’s certain podcasts that have done really well being long form. Yeah, arguably the world’s most popular podcast, Joe Rogan is incredibly long form. And yet people still consume that. so I think, you know, like our attention, I guess I’ll flip the argument around to say that I think our attention has become a commodity, a valuable commodity. hence, we only want to give it up for things that we find interesting.

So whether that’s short form or long form. So I think we may be becoming more guarded with how we exercise our available time in that sense.

The rise of audience fragmentation

Anmol Satija – Yes, yes, definitely. And from here on, I would take the conversation forward in context to we are also hearing a lot about audience fragmentation and like you said, too much content, right? So it feels like we are living in sort of a media bubble. So there’s shift happening in our consumption patterns, right? So like, what’s your take on that?

Ahmad – I mean, yeah, I think audiences have become a lot more fragmented in the sense that I think the change that I think has happened is that I think as an audience, you can go find the content you like and consume that. Whereas previously, I think you would have to consume content that was provided by mainstream media. And I think, like the large point, mainstream media has kind of died because mainstream media is trying to produce content for like the middle part of the bell curve, right? Where most people sit.

But that’s not, I don’t think how audiences are consuming media anymore. think audiences are finding the content that they like. And because there’s so much content being produced, they can go and find that content wherever they want, or whatever media platform. So if you’re, I don’t know, if you’re a young person that wants to learn about, I don’t know, gardening or something like that.

The history of the Royal Family in Thailand or something like that, there is some content that you can find that someone’s produced that you can go and attach yourself to. It’s highly unlikely that mainstream media is ever going to produce content for that subject matter. So I think the audience is fragmented because I think people have more choice about what content they want to consume. And hence, they go and find the content they want rather than mainstream media produce the content for the middle pack of consumers in that sense.

Who really controls the content?

Anmol Satija – So do you think that individual creators and even major media houses have less control over how their work reaches people? Like that makes me wonder, do you think the content ownership is losing relevance in an era where platforms like control distribution?

Ahmad – Yes, I mean, I content ownership, I’m not sure that content ownership is losing relevance. I the ability to maybe monetize content ownership, I think is being largely controlled by platforms to some degree. Right. Yeah, I guess there used to be a world where you had content creators, had distributors, and you had the consumer, right?

So there was a kind of three people, trifecta in that sense. had creators, distributors, and consumers. Then I think that world changed because you had all these tech platforms come in. And then the tech platforms are now trying to find where they fit in that world. Largely, came in as, they came to disrupt the distributors. They effectively became the medium for distributing content.

Ahmad– YouTube is a classic example of that. They came in, you could watch CNN or you could watch YouTube. YouTube is effectively a TV channel, except it’s just online. So I don’t think that there’s not a huge leap of faith to go through that. So I think now the key question is, what role are platforms going to play? Are they going to become the distributors or are they going to become the content creators to some degree as well with the advent of AI?

And then, or does the platform become an agent for the consumers to consume content as well? Yeah, like I guess that’s kind of the interesting part that tech platforms have to play or figure out, guess.

Anmol Satija – Yes, yeah, I would definitely agree to that. And it’s a very interesting way to look at it. Maybe tech platforms haven’t just disrupted distributions, they might have become some sort of distributors, right? So speaking of, yeah, you want to say something?

Ahmad – I think that’s where maybe, yeah, I mean, maybe that’s where to your question about ownership, yeah, like that’s, think where the lines get kind of blurred a little bit is that, you know, like the tech platforms are the ones that are kind of commercializing a lot of the content. So, you know, so then does the platform really have ownership because they’re commercializing it as well? Or does the content creator ultimately have ownership? I mean, right now, you the content creator ultimately has ownership. They have copyright or whatever content they produce.

But, you know, that doesn’t mean anything if you can’t distribute it commercially to some degree. so yeah, so think it’s interesting how I guess the space is kind of going to play. And I think it also changes by media, right? Like if you make movies, you like, like you’re kind of limited in how you’re going to distribute movies. Right now, I mean, like maybe in the future, YouTube becomes bigger or something like that. Yeah, like there’s people

Ahmad – People will probably put feature-length movies on there and they’ll probably make more money by putting them on YouTube than maybe doing a commercial release or something like that, right?

Anmol Satija – Yes, and I guess it’s already happening. Some of them are already doing that.

Ahmad – Yeah, yeah. And like, you know, if you’re a young filmmaker, you can make a movie and you can sell it to Netflix. you know, like Netflix is essentially your movie theater now. But there’s other formats like songs, I think have gone completely differently, right? Where, you know, like a lot of people use Spotify, but now actually more and more people probably use YouTube because they make more money out of YouTube or they go to live music. You know, like think if you arguably ask musicians now, they probably make more money, like personally out of touring rather than

Ahmad – putting it on streaming platforms. So I think, yeah, like there’s always this change. I think that happens in the type of media as well. yeah, so a tech platform might own one type of media, but, you know, but it might lose the battle with another one along the way.

Generative AI and its impact on media

Anmol Satija – Yes, definitely. So now I wanted to talk about another big shift happening, that is the hot topic, generative AI. We are seeing AI pump out articles, reports, and even investigate content at an insane pace. But that raises a huge question. So how does this impact the value and credibility of well-researched human-created content and more importantly how do we tell the difference between how high quality human research work and AI generated material.

Ahmad – I think the challenge is maybe the second part of your question is how do we tell the difference between good, well curated content and I guess, I don’t want say bad, but say not well informed, rapidly generated content. I think that’s probably the more of the problem that people face. I’m never one to believe that like generative AI

I don’t think it’s going to destroy the value of credibility of well-researched, good content. I guess I would say like this, Generative AI has the same ability to destroy well-generated content as the word processor or the typewriter due to well-published articles or news stories. It’s a tool. People can use that tool to make their content better. Some people use it for that.

And some people use it to create garbage content. So I think what generative AI will do is will remove the lowest tier of content producers who are putting no effort into producing content. Now that can be produced by anyone easily. So I think it’s going to get rid of that bottom level of the pyramid. I’m not sure it’s going to really impact the top level of the pyramid. If you’re someone like Malcolm Gladwell, like Malcolm, I don’t know if you know the author, he’s written a number of books.

Ahmad – Yeah, like, and I find his books really fascinating because he researches these books for like, you know, years until he writes a book. Right. Like, know, is General AI gonna put Malcolm Gladwell out of business? Because, you know, is it gonna do the 10 years of research that he can do and like pull different ideas and connect them together in an interesting way? No, I think think you can make it faster for him to do it. But, you know, but still the value of Malcolm Gladwell will still be the value of Malcolm Gladwell.

So I think that the first question in your thing, like, it gonna destroy the value? I don’t think so. The second question is, think, more kind of pertinent is, you know, like, how do we differentiate the good content and the bad content? My personal belief is that I don’t think AI-generated content is that good yet. Like, you know, like, I think there’ll be a time where it will become good. But I think, you know, I don’t know.

My feeling is that I think you could always tell the human piece versus the machine piece, because we can’t codify emotions into machines yet. And I think that’s probably a fundamental part of human-generated content. But yeah, I’m happy to be… Yeah, we could listen to this podcast in, I don’t know, 20 years, and I’ll be wrong by that, because we don’t have robots that exhibit emotions. But I don’t know, think that’s the challenge, is telling the difference, I think.

The rise of fake media

Anmol Satija – Yeah, I believe that’s a really balanced take, but like any tool, it is only as good as the person using it. Right. So the real challenge is making sure we do not let AI generated content dilute credibility, especially when it comes to accuracy and emotional depth. Like you just said, there’s

Ahmad – Yeah, I think the challenge that we talked about, Ian, like you asked the question of attention span. And I think that’s maybe where this conversation is more pertinent. If I’m only consuming three minutes of content a day, Ian, like what’s my ability to figure out in that three minutes whether this content is AI generated with very little curation behind it, or is it

AI generated with a significant amount of human curation behind it. That I think is probably the challenge in our attention deficit world, that we would just buy whatever we see without understanding what’s the basis behind it.

Anmol Satija – Yeah. Yes. Yes. So this also brings me to my next question. So there’s even a bigger concern. isn’t just creating articles or reports, it is also creating deep fakes, synthetic voices and misinformation. So fake media is getting kind of a scary, scarily realistic, I would call it. So how is this impacting the industry?

Ahmad – Yeah, I think that’s also, I think that’s quite a pertinent challenge in that the more realistic this content becomes, the harder it is for the consumer to figure out what is real and what is a deep fake, right? And I think, I I guess, like, you this is, you know, like, you always think that, you know, like when we create technology, you know, like I always, like my view on technology always is that I think Technology is a great democratization of ability, right?

That’s essentially where good technology impacts people. Yeah, like if you think of like any kind of machine, look at white goods. white goods are, I guess, for example, like a fridge, like refrigerators, washing machines, all this type of stuff. Yeah, like what it’s done is level the ability for people to do these really manual tasks, which are largely done by women, right?

Yeah, like it’s allowed that great democratization so that you know, essentially women and other people could get time back during the day So so what it did was actually democratize the ability for everyone not to waste a whole day washing clothes or you know food prep or something like that So I think that’s always the greatest use of technology So I so that’s why I like the concept of AI generated content because I think it’s going to democratize the ability for people that you know, maybe aren’t great at research aren’t great at word processing or whatever, grammatically writing certain pieces or things like that, it’s going to improve their ability to do it. But I also then understand that people are attacking the other end of it as well, where they’re making these de-fake, highly credible looking content just to subvert people’s views and opinions. Yeah, think that’s a challenge.

I mean, it’s something that I find quite difficult at times as well, like, you know, like, I’ll listen to something. And then, know, like, if it seems to be quite controversial, you know, like, I often have that same feeling to go, well, you know, did I just consume something legitimate? Or did I just consume something, you know, fake or, you know, like, kind of nefariously created. And I guess one of the things that one of the things I think the volume that AI generated content creates, and I think this is a challenge, is that often

Yeah, like before someone created a de-fake, they could have created it at the scale to kind of throw people off. But now, like, you you can proliferate so much de-fake content that I think it’s hard to then, like, you know, you’ll hit the same content with multiple sources and that adds credibility to it, but it’s not. It’s just artificially generated in that sense.

Anmol Satija – Yes, yeah and of course misinformation has always been there it isn’t new but now yeah we do have better tools to fight back also we of course through social media also now we can you know confirm whether it’s fake or it’s real there are also options for that too

Ahmad – Yeah, and I think, I mean, I always take the view that, you know, like if you generate a lot of AI content in media particularly, and we destroy the credibility kind of component or the credibility kind of relationship with consumers, then I think consumers will just go consume a different type of media. You know, like what they might do is they might go and start listening to people give speeches again. You know, like maybe we’ll go back to that advent.

So maybe people won’t consume their media through social media because we have devalued the transaction of media through social media. Maybe they’ll go back to listen to people talk like in halls or whatever, like give speeches and things like that. Because it’s hard to fake that stuff, right? Like if I went to listen to you give a talk, it’s highly unlikely that someone could have faked like you being there and the way you talk and blah, blah. So I think maybe, you know,

Every time I think we’ve devalued something like this, think people have gone and consumed something else, right, in that sense. So maybe that’s the natural outcome is that we’ll just stop listening to digital media forms and we’ll just go back to kind of a live media consumption in that sense.

Is there still room for long form content?

Anmol Satija – Yeah, yeah. So definitely, it is like one trend leads to another. And my next question is also somewhere related to this one only. So everybody wants quick and snappy content, like we just discussed. 30-second reels, bite-sized news, and instant entertainment. So where does that leave long form of content? You just mentioned that we might go back to.

Hearing out speeches of people actually talking about certain things. what is it? Was it? What exactly is it for in depth journalism, detailed storytelling and podcasts like this one?

Ahmad – Yeah, I guess I always have the view that there will always be a place for long form content. Because like, I mean, depending on the topic, like, for example, you know, like I live in Australia, you know, there’s a fantastic show here called Q &A. And yeah, like the whole premise of the show is that they it’s like an hour long show. And then they, you know, like they come up with really controversial topics and people have to debate them.

And it’s a panel of about six people plus the host, seven people. And they pick quite controversial topics or quite evolved topics, nuanced topics, like how should Australia deal with immigration? Let’s say, for example. And when you actually go watch the show, one of the reasons why I think that show somewhat struggles is because you take this one topic.

And it’s not the only topic you talk about in an hour. You’ll talk about maybe six different topics. So for each topic, you probably have 10 minutes in real time to talk about so you can cover all of the topics. If you take out ads or something like that, you’ve probably got eight minutes to talk about these topics. And in those eight minutes, you’ve got to have seven people talk about them. in essence, everyone has about a minute to talk about this topic.

Right now it’s pretty hard to make a nuanced argument about should Australia have more immigration or less immigration in 60 seconds. So that’s why I think there’ll always be a place for long form content because sometimes it just takes a long time to answer a complicated question. So I think long form will always be around. The problem I think with long form is that because there’s so much long form content being created, you can create a three hour podcast same as Joe Rogan can.

But so can everyone else now. Not to disparage different content creators, Joe Rogan probably has a certain research team and he can pull certain people in and they can have a more nuanced conversation. And if I produce a three hour podcast, I’m not sure I could get it to the same level as Joe Rogan in the guest and the content.

So now how do I as a consumer, without knowing anything about Rogan, you or my podcast, how do we consume that content without knowing what level of content I’m gonna get back? And so I think the problem in long form is that it’s not the easiest to consume and figure out whether you like it or not, right? Like, if I had to listen to…like 10 of Rogan’s episodes, that’s like 30 hours of content I have to listen to. And then at the end of that, go, yeah, you know what, I hate the podcast, but I wasted 30 hours consuming it. So I think that’s where Short Form, I think my feeling is that that’s why we like Short Form. It’s kind of like the trailer to a movie. If I like the trailer, I’ll watch the movie. If I don’t like the trailer, I won’t watch the movie. So I think maybe that’s why Short Form is winning out is because people go, I just want to…

Now I’m happy to listen to you for 60 seconds. If I like what you’re saying in that 60 seconds, I’ll listen to you for an hour. But if I don’t like what you’re saying in 60 seconds, I’m going to move on to the next person along the line. And I think that’s kind of the challenging relationship between short form and long form.

What challenges will media companies face?

Anmol Satija – Yes, definitely. that makes so much sense, Ahmed. Of course, there’s so much noise around and audiences are actively looking for sources that they enjoy and can trust. but with all of these shifts happening in, yeah.

Ahmad – Yeah, I mean you can see that in like…

Sorry, I was gonna say, I mean, you can see this in things like movie consumption and things like that, right? There’s like, yeah, there’s like fantastic study done to show like, you know, the number of movies created in different genres. Yeah, like, if you look at over the last kind of 10 to 20 years, you know, like the genres that movies would fit into have exploded. And it’s because there’s just more ability for people to create movies that fit different genres.

And that’s just because, you know, like there’s more consumption from that point. Whereas, like, you know, if you go back to like the 60s or 70s, you like you could kind of count on your hand the genres that each movie would fit in because you kind of had a dominant movie studio like Hollywood. And you live in India and Bollywood, you know, but there were very few genres that they would produce in that sense, right? Because, you know, like you had to kind of produce content that everyone in the movie theater would like. Now I think that that relationship is different now. People can consume it on their phone if they want. So I think that’s change in that sense.

Anmol Satija – Yes, definitely, of course. But with all of these shifts happening in media consumption, there’s got to be some big challenges ahead. So looking ahead, what are the biggest risks that media companies can face over the next five years, according to you?

Ahmad – I mean, I think the biggest one they face is really around, I guess, the short attention span of consumers. You have to create content that is interesting enough in the short form without being, I guess, too click-baity in that sense. I guess the biggest problem I find in short-form media is

How do you create a genuine relationship with your consumer? How do you create that trust relationship with them by giving them 30 second clips? Because if they’re too clickbaity, then someone else can create something that’s even more clickbaity and you can move on to the next one. So I think people that have done really well on things like Instagram or TikTok, they’re really figured out that magic kind of relationship of how they can create short content that creates that trust relationship with consumers and then you know, like once you have that trust relationship, then I think you can do kind of really well with them. So I think that they, you know, like as a media company, I guess that’s probably the toughest thing I find is, you know, like if you’re like Netflix, like, know, like how do you decide what content you want to fund? You know, like if we’ve only had a million people, and you could create like a standard Hollywoodized kind of movie and all million people will consume it.

That’s an easy proposition to create content. But now all of a sudden, out of those million people, you have 10,000 different kind of clusters of what people want. Are you going to create 10,000 different types of media for them to consume? How are you going to allow people to find it? How are you going to allow people to kind of have that relationship? That kind of trust relationship with the creator. That’s something that’s to be really difficult in that sense.

Ahmad – And then I think there’s other things like, know, which have always hung around in media is like, know, like, how do you compete against, uh, like plagiarism? How do you compete against like, uh, authenticity of content? You know, like if you’re creating, like, if you’re largely using AI to create this content, you know, you know, like, did you put anything, you know, like if you could use an AI generated thing, like, you know, if you can use, uh, soda or something like that to create some content.

Sora, sorry, the opening, think, you know, like, couldn’t I just use it to create content as well? You know, like, what differentiates your content from my content? Like, what extra source do you put into your content that makes your content better than my content? Yeah. So if everything’s democratized where anyone can make content, how do you actually make truly original content in that sense?

Why the future of media is still bright?

Anmol Satija – Yeah, very, very interesting breakdown, Ahmed. And I would definitely agree that media companies aren’t just competing with each other anymore. They are competing with short attention spans and endless scroll of content, I would say. So now I would like to come to my… Yeah.

Ahmad – Yeah. Oh, sorry. One other thing I wanted to say in that is that, you know, like the like what a media company is, I think has changed as well. Right. Yeah. Like it’s hard to qualify. Like, yeah, like look at Netflix. You know, like Netflix was a like essentially a movie rental company. You know, like then it became a streaming company.

Now it’s its own movie studio, really. You know, like arguably it’s actually one of the biggest funders of truly original content. so, yeah, yeah, so is that a media company? Is Twitter a media company? Is Instagram a media company? Yeah, like probably, you know, there’s probably, you know, if you took the definition that a media company is someone that pulls in advertisers so they can advertise on media, then, you know, things like Instagram and TikTok are actually media companies. Yeah, like they were probably rival.

You know, like Fox News and stuff like that, or the advertising dollars that they actually transact through. Yeah, so what’s future definition of a media company in that sense as well? So I think, yeah, like all of that stuff has really changed, I think.

Anmol Satija – Yeah, yeah, yes, definitely. It has changed and we always see something new happening around us. So coming to my last question and very excited for this one. So we have talked about the challenges and but what about the opportunities? So looking ahead, what excites you the most about the future of media?

Ahmad – I mean, I think we touched on this before. I think that the biggest use of technology is that it democratizes ability to many people. I think that the coolest thing about media in the future is that because we have through technology, you know, like really democratize the ability for people to create content that we’re going to get a lot of interesting content created by people.

You know, like you don’t necessarily need to be like a filmmaker that has gone, that lives in California and has connections to like, know, movie studios or things like that, or India, right? Like you don’t have to be a person that has connections into the Bollywood movie space to create content, to create movies. You know, like now, you know, the iPhone 16 creates, you know, like movie grade kind of movies just through a smartphone.

So I think the ability for people to create their own content is going to explode and I think that’s cool like yeah You know someone living in Nairobi can create just as good content as someone living in Los Angeles So I think that’s gonna be a really cool world to live in where we’re gonna get much more content We’re gonna get quite a lot more diverse level of content as well.

And you know, the the cool thing about art is the more voices to be our the more interesting art becomes. So I think it’ll be interesting. That’s going to be the space where anyone with an iPhone or a smartphone can actually make pretty good media. then as a consumer, you can consume it. I think it’ll be a fascinating world.

Anmol Satija – Yeah, definitely, Emad. And I think that you have given a lot to think about. And we have covered so much in this conversation. The conversation has been absolutely insightful, from covering how short-form content is shaping media consumption to the impact of, say, AI-driven misinformation the evolving balance between creators and platforms.

So we have covered it all. And the way audiences, I would say, consume, engage, and trust content is, of course, shifting rapidly. And maybe on a concluding note, I can say that companies that fail to adapt will struggle to stay relevant somehow. But as we discussed, it is not all doom and gloom. There are incredible opportunities for creators and media brands to embrace innovation, AI, and the changing behavior. So, Emmet, thank you again for your time and for sharing your valuable insights.

Ahmad – Thanks a lot for having me, Anmol. This was great. Hopefully you got as much out of the conversation as I did, so it was great.

Anmol Satija – Yeah. And to our listeners, if you enjoyed this conversation, don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode. And we have got a lot more thought provoking discussions lined up for you guys. So stay tuned for the next one. Till then, thank you and keep listening to the unthinkable tech podcast.