Acast: Podcasters are becoming a higher-trust alternative to influencers

Podcast creators are increasingly being positioned as a higher-trust alternative to both traditional influencers and mainstream advertising, according to the chief executive of Acast.

Greg Glenday said podcasting's ability to build trust over longer periods of time gives creators an advantage over more traditional forms of influencer marketing.

Speaking at The Podcast Show* in London, Glenday cited company research showing that while 75% of weekly podcast listeners do not consider podcasters to be influencers, 84% said they had been influenced by a host's recommendation or opinion.

“There's lots of ways to get people's attention in advertising right now, but how do you get their trust?” he said. “We are the place where you can unpack a narrative.”

He contrasted podcasting with more traditional influencer marketing, arguing that podcast creators operate more like trusted personal recommendations than celebrity endorsements.

“You see the supermodel holding a Subway sandwich – you know they didn't eat it,” he said. “Podcasters are my friend in the pub telling me what film I should go and see.”

Glenday also argued that podcasting shapes cultural and news conversations earlier than traditional media or search platforms. Using internal Acast data, he pointed to spikes in podcast discussion around events including the Oscars, the Super Bowl and geopolitical developments before broader search interest picked up elsewhere online.

“If you're a brand trying to break through at the Oscars, it's really hard to stand out on the day,” he said. “But you can start that narrative conversation in a much slower, easier way.”

To illustrate the industry's technical shift, Glenday demonstrated Acast's publishing system live on stage, showing how a single video upload automatically extracts audio and serves different ad formats depending on whether a listener is watching or listening.

He described the capability as a “small thing” with “big implications for the future”.

“We've had 20 years of podcasting,” he said. “Then the last six months of progress has just been unbelievable.”

*Podcasting's Future is Free-Flowing, The Podcast Show London, 21 May 2026.