The Irish digital audio market is wide open for good quality branded podcasts. The problem is there’s not enough of them, writes Peter Smyth.
Let’s be honest. Most branded podcasts are terrible. Brands know it and listeners hear it. That said, the ones that succeed do something completely different, and that difference is now worth serious money.
Why? Because good, branded audio taps into two things that aren’t going away: people love hearing from other people AND they’re increasingly turning more to AI for answers. Brands that can deliver both will earn a huge share of attention for years to come.
With 2027 budget season in Q3/Q4 approaching soon, there’s one question that I keep hearing from marketers and agencies: with branded podcasts, what actually works—and how do you deliver community and commercial impact?
I’ll give you answer and I’ll also tell you why GEO is the new SEO—and why pretending otherwise could cost you.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in this space as we recently built and launched Vocalise, a new, Irish owned digital audio brand developed in a strategic partnership with Digitize and powered by Triton. It brings together digital streaming. podcast and on-demand audio from all 15 IRS+ local radio stations, along with WLR FM and five digital-only stations – 21 in total, under one unified, data driven audio brand.
What’s clear to me is that the most useful pivot a marketing director can make this year is to stop thinking about branded audio as advertising and start thinking about it as publishing. The best podcast sponsorships never feel like ads while the best branded series never feel like marketing. Instead, they feel like something the listener chose. Think about your own content consumption and you’ll know that I’m right.
Resistance
So what’s the current state of the content market? Here’s what I know. Audiences want human voices but those same audiences are also increasingly searching with AI.
Ironically, while the market is moving toward AI search, it is also actively rejecting AI-hosted audio. Sounds Profitable’s Podcast Landscape 2024 found listeners report materially lower engagement and trust when a host is known to be AI-generated. That finding matters.
So, people will accept AI summarising content but they will resist AI performing it. That distinction is not a detail, it’s the entire strategic opportunity. Voice and perspective are the product. Searchability is the distribution. Brands that understand this are building something durable. Brands that don’t are buying attention that evaporates.
And this is the gap where serious branded audio such as Vocalise belongs. Think of it another way, voice and perspective are the product and searchability is the distribution.
What’s Next?
Ireland presents a strong opportunity for brands: the market is accessible, quality-driven, and underdeveloped in branded audio compared to the UK and US. Despite growing listenership, Core’s Outlook 2025 and IAB Europe’s AdEx Benchmark reflect that podcast ad spend remains below its potential, lagging European averages. However, from where I sit, that gap is not a problem, it’s an opening.
At IRS+, we see local challenger brands building disproportionate share of voice on podcast budgets that are a fraction of what they would spend on television or out-of-home. This isn’t really a shift in format, it’s a shift in mindset. Traditional campaigns monopolises attention for a couple of weeks, but that’s it. By contrast, a branded series, builds: every episode adds to a library that keeps getting discovered, shared, and quoted.
GEO is the new SEO
Generative Engine Optimisation is the recent new kid on the block that we all need to pay attention to. Gartner forecasts a 25 per cent drop in traditional search engine volume by 2026 as users shift queries to AI assistants and chatbots.
Those assistants do not rank pages so much as “synthesise” sources. They read whole conversations to understand context and nuance.
Podcasts, once invisible to search engines, are now among the highest-quality inputs an AI system can draw on, provided they are transcribed and tagged properly. When a brand appears in an episode, its perspective becomes part of the answer the next buyer, listener or journalist receives. Well-structured branded podcast content is already being cited inside AI search results. That is a genuinely new capability, and most marketing plans have not caught up.
Bear with me while I get technical for a minute – here’s three elements that turn a branded podcast into something AI search will actually cite.
First, publish the transcript. No transcript, no presence in AI answers – it’s that simple. Audio alone is invisible to the machines deciding who gets quoted. Write it down and a 40-minute episode keeps working long after release week.
Second, get the basics right. Clear titles. Real guest credentials. Show notes that describe the show. The same care that respects your listener is what makes the episode quotable to a machine. Sloppy details aren’t a branding issue — they’re the reason you don’t get found. Third, change the pitch. At this point, “Let’s make a podcast” feels like a less than compelling prospect. However, “Your series is a source AI will cite for months” is the one that lands. That’s the line so lead with it.
Spending your 2027 budget
Don’t go full tilt with a suite of banded podcasts. start with one series – depth beats breadth when you are building a voice. Commit to at least twelve episodes before judging performance. Build the GEO layer in from day one, because retrofitting transcripts and metadata to a back catalogue is painful and expensive.
Your branded series isn’t a marketing campaign, it’s a source. The AI will decide who gets cited. Start building your case now and get in touch if you want to know more.
Peter Smyth is CEO of IRS+
