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Digestible Podcast Summaries with AI

Never Miss the Key Insights Again

Author

Hazel-Ann Butcher
July 16, 2024

Summarize your favorite podcasts, when you can’t listen to every episode.

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Do you struggle to keep up with your favorite podcasts? You're not alone. 

With over 5 million active podcasts and more than 71 million episodes available, it's impossible to listen to everything that interests you. 

Do you have some gems in your podcast archive? You know, those episodes that really helped your business? Now you can easily make notes on them.

And what if you could get the key insights from your favorite podcasts even when you can’t listen to every episode? There’s an AI for that. 

In this week's newsletter, I'll show you how to create an automation that uses AI to generate transcripts and summaries of your podcast episode downloads. You'll never miss out on your favorite podcasts again.

The Power of Podcast Summaries

Before we get to the tutorial, let's talk about why podcast summaries are so valuable. 

  • Save Time: You can get the key takeaways from the episode now, and come back for a full listen when time permits. 

  • Improve Retention: Strengthen your understanding and memory of important concepts by reading a summary after listening.

  • Discover New Podcasts: Summaries help you sample a variety of podcasts and find new favorites, without committing to listening to entire episodes.

The Podcast Summary Workflow

For this automation, we'll be using Make, a workflow automation software, to connect several tools and services. 

This is what you'll need:

- Dropbox or Google Drive account

- Make account

- AssemblyAI API key

- OpenAI API key

- Google account

- Gmail account

Here’s what we’ll accomplish with this workflow:

  1. Download and save your podcast episodes to Dropbox or Google Drive.

  2. Create transcripts of the episodes with AssemblyAI.

  3. ChatGPT will write a summary of each transcript.

  4. Save each summary in a Google Doc.

  5. Get an email notification with the Google Doc link.

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Download Podcast Episodes

First, download the podcast episodes you want to summarize and save them to a Dropbox folder. If you prefer, you can save them to your Google Drive instead.

Step 2: Create a New Make Scenario

Log in to your Make account and create a new scenario. 

Step 3: Set Up Dropbox Module

  1. Add a Dropbox (or Google Drive) module to your scenario.

  2. Choose List All Files/SubFolders in a Folder as the action. 

  3. Connect your Dropbox (or Google Drive) account.

  4. Select the folder where you saved your podcast episodes.

  1. Click OK.

  2. Save the scenario.

  3. Run the module to ensure it’s set up correctly.

Step 4: Add Iterator Module

  1. Add an Iterator module. We use this module to go through the podcast files one by one. 

  2. Click in the Array field, and the results from the previous module will pop up. Choose Name to fill the Array field.

  1. Click OK.

  2. Save the scenario.

  3. Run the scenario.

Step 5: Another Dropbox Module

  1. Add another Dropbox (or Google Drive) module. The action to choose is Download a File.

  2. For Way of selecting files, choose Map a file path.

  3. Click in the File path field, and select Path lower from the previous Dropbox module results.

  4. Click OK.

  5. Save.

  6. Run the scenario.

Step 6: Set up a Filter

  1. Click the wrench icon between the previous 2 modules (Iterator and Dropbox- Download a File).

  2. A Set up a filter box will pop up.

  3. Set the Condition just as you see it in the picture below.  This makes sure that only the episodes you downloaded in the last 7 days are processed. (If we don’t do this step, every file in the folder will be processed every time you run this automation. So this step is pretty important!)

  1. Click OK.

  2. Save.

  3. Run.

Step 7: Add AssemblyAI module

  1. Add an AssemblyAI module to your scenario and choose the Upload a File action. 

  2. Set up your AssemblyAI connection by adding your API key.

  3. Select Dropbox - Download a File.

  1. Click OK.

  2. Save.

  3. Run.

Step 8: Transcribe with AssemblyAI

  1. Add another AssemblyAI module with the Transcribe an Audio File action. 

  2. Click in the Audio File field; choose Uploaded File URL from the previous AssemblyAI module.

  1. Click OK.

  2. Save.

  3. Run.

Step 9: Summarize with ChatGPT

  1. Add an OpenAI module and choose the Create a Completion action. 

  2. Set up your OpenAI connection by adding your API key.

  3. For Select Method, choose Create a Chat Completion (GPT Models).

  4. Choose gpt-4o for the Model.

  5. Click Add a message under Messages.

  6. Choose System as the Role.

  7. To create a system prompt, copy what you see in the following picture:

  1. Add another message. Choose User as the Role.

  2. Copy the prompt from the picture below. Select the transcript from the previous AssemblyAI module and add it to the prompt as you see in the picture.

  1. Set Max Tokens to at least 1000.

  2. Click OK.

  3. Save. 

  4. Run.

Step 10: Save Summary to Google Docs

  1. Add a Google Docs module.

  2. Choose Create a document as the action. 

  3. Connect your Google account. 

  4. For Name, click in the field and select Name from the first Dropbox module.

  5. In Content, choose the summary from the OpenAI module. (Optional: add a page break in HTML and include the transcript from the second AssemblyAI module. You can see an example in the picture below.)

  1. Choose the Google Drive and Folder where you want to save the Google Doc.

  2. Click OK.

  3. Save.

  4. Run.

Step 11: Send Email Notification

  1. Finally, add a Gmail module to your scenario.

  2. Choose the Send an Email action. 

  3. Add your email address in the Email address 1 field.

  4. Type in an appropriate subject line.

  5. In the Content field, include the Google Doc link.

  6. Click OK.

  7. Save and run.

You can schedule this scenario to run once a week.

That's it! Your podcast summary automation is now complete. Here’s what the entire scenario will look like:

Continue adding new episodes to your Dropbox folder, and this automation will create summaries of them, and notify you via email.

Upgrading the System

Of course, this is a basic setup. You can make this as complex as you wish. Here are a few ideas:

  •  Remove the Google Doc module and email the entire summary instead of just the link.

  • Get a SMS or WhatsApp notification instead of email.

  • Set up a system to organize and tag your podcast summaries, so you can easily find and reference them later.

  • This automation makes a Google Doc and email for each podcast episode. Set it up so you get  all the summaries in one weekly Google Doc instead.

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💡 Automation Inspiration

Podcast summaries are just the beginning. 

With AI, you can automate all kinds of business tasks, from creating your social media content to managing your bookkeeping.

If you want to explore more ways to use AI to enhance your productivity, let's talk. 

Book a free discovery call with me, and we'll discuss how AI can help you achieve your personal and business goals.

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Up Next

Next week, we'll create an AI-powered research system. I'll share how to find and synthesize information from multiple sources with AI. 

If there's a specific topic you'd like me to cover in a future issue, just reply to this email and let me know. I'm always looking for ways to make this newsletter more valuable for you.

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