blog

How I Became a Podcaster with Help From CastleGuard AI and NotebookLM

Written by Bruce Nolan | Nov 12, 2024 7:44:45 PM

You won’t believe your ears when you hear it…

Last month, while putting some material together about our on-premise AI product, CastleGuard AI, I was asked to help out with a different kind of Marketing task.  Something I never thought I’d have the need to do. 

The request was to create a Webinar / Podcast about our product.  I’d never done that before, but I jumped right in to learn.  Little did I know that AI would make this job so simple it could be done in minutes.

 

Here’s how I started 

I started by using our CastleGuard AI Chatbot to help me get ideas of what to do - AI’s are great for overcoming writer’s block.  But then I spent a lot of time not using AI, creating a written dialogue with two people talking to each other about our product. The script talked about the features and capabilities, and why the product was unique and valuable.  I admit, being an Engineer it was a bit lengthy, kind of technical, and it needed work.  All told, it took me a couple of days to create and polish the script. 

I then attached the script file to our Chat to get some more suggestions:

 

I wasn’t sure how I’d get actual people to read the script, whether I’d have to become a voice actor (ugh!), and how I would record it all to make it sound professional.

In the end, I learned it wasn’t necessary to have done all that up front work, and my worries soon dissolved.

 

Here’s what happened next

At our standup, my boss suggested trying NotebookLM to see what it could do.  It’s a Gemini AI powered tool from Google that makes all kinds of useful material out of a document like FAQ’s, Study Guides, Briefing Notes, Timelines, and more.

A couple minutes later, after loading my dialogue script into the NotebookLM interface, I had a truly Holy Crap moment.  An audio file was created with two human sounding voices talking about our product!

And they weren’t following my script at all.

And it was better!

 

Here's why it was incredible

The two voices, a male and a female, interacted with each other, sometimes interrupted each other, and sometimes even said “Um”.  It was amazing.  It sounded like two real people, but in reality they were voices generated by the AI.

The result was lively, friendly, easy to understand, and more succinct than what I’d written.  It still hit the highlights, but somehow it made the whole thing more impactful.

I was able to download the audio file, share it with my colleagues, and the result was a resounding success.

 

Here’s what it looks like in NotebookLM

I’ve highlighted a green box around the Audio overview / Podcast creation feature:

 

Here’s How to Listen to It 

I’ve since uploaded the Intro to CastleGuard AI Podcast to our Nextria YouTube channel and added a slide background to it.  It’s only 5 minutes long and you can give it a listen here:

I recommend taking a few minutes of your day to listen to it, even if you’re not in the market for an on-premise AI product, just to see how far AI has come.  You won’t believe it!

So yes, not only have I become a Podcaster now, but apparently also a YouTuber. 
Who would have thought?

 

Here’s How You Can Do it

To learn more about how you too can become a Podcaster, just go to https://notebooklm.google/ and drop in the document that you want processed. 
(You’ll thank me later)

 

But wait, there’s more

The image for this Blog was created by Open AI's ChatGPT-4o when I fed it the title of my Blog and asked for a picture.

AI industry tools have evolved even further now, to be able to create video avatars with the generated content.  That’s another blog for another day though…

 

That’s a Wrap

To learn more about how CastleGuard AI can put your organization at the forefront of innovation and unleash productivity gains with Practical AI solutions, visit:  www.nextria.ca/castleguard-ai

To learn more about Nextria - a Google partner, and a Canadian company focused on Secure On-Premise AI solutions for Governments and Enterprises, visit: www.nextria.ca

 

Bruce Nolan - VP Customer Success, Nextria