I started a podcast in April. Nothing serious — just me talking about freelancing and AI tools for 20 minutes every other week. No guests, no fancy production, just me and a $60 USB microphone in my home office.
By episode 4, I was spending 3 hours on post-production for every 20-minute episode. Cutting out “ums,” removing long pauses, balancing audio levels, adding intro music, exporting, uploading. The recording was the fun part. Everything else was a chore.
So I tested three AI podcasting tools — Descript, Adobe Podcast, and Riverside — by producing the SAME episode in each one. Same raw audio (24 minutes of me rambling about AI email assistants). Same goal: a polished, publish-ready episode in under an hour. Here’s how they compared.
The Short List
- Best all-in-one editor: Descript — it treats audio like a text document, and that changes everything
- Best for audio cleanup: Adobe Podcast — the AI audio enhancement is borderline magic
- Best for remote interviews: Riverside — local recording means no “Zoom compression” audio quality
- The combo move: Record in Riverside, clean audio in Adobe Podcast, edit in Descript. But that’s three subscriptions, so pick your poison.
How I Tested
I recorded one 24-minute monologue episode. Same microphone (Audio-Technica AT2020 USB), same room, same me drinking too much coffee. I uploaded the raw audio to each tool and timed how long it took to produce a finished episode, including:
- Audio cleanup (removing background noise, leveling)
- Editing (cutting ums, long pauses, mistakes)
- Adding intro/outro music
- Exporting to MP3
I also measured the final audio quality subjectively (how natural it sounded) and objectively (signal-to-noise ratio, loudness consistency).
Descript: The Game-Changer
If you’ve never used Descript, here’s the pitch: it transcribes your audio and lets you edit the TEXT to edit the audio. Delete a sentence from the transcript, and it’s gone from the audio. Type a word you forgot to say, and it generates your voice saying it. This sounds like magic. It’s actually real, and it works about 85% of the time.
The editing experience: My 24-minute episode transcribed in about 3 minutes. The transcript was maybe 90% accurate — good enough to read, with some funny errors (“freedancing” instead of “freelancing” became a recurring joke).I edited the episode by reading the transcript like a document. Cut a tangent about my coffee maker (3 paragraphs → 2 clicks). Removed 47 “ums” (Descript has a one-click “remove filler words” button). Tightened up a rambling explanation of email protocols (delete 2 sentences, done).
Total editing time: 18 minutes. For context, traditional audio editing (cutting waveforms in Audacity or GarageBand) would have taken me 90+ minutes.
AI voice generation (Overdub): This is the feature that makes people either love or hate Descript. I trained it on 10 minutes of my voice, and now I can type words I never said and it generates them in my voice. I used it twice in this episode — once to fix a sentence where I’d said “their” instead of “there” (one word), and once to add a transition sentence I forgot.The generated voice is maybe 85% convincing. In the middle of a paragraph, you won’t notice. At the start or end of a clip, it sounds slightly robotic. My wife noticed immediately (“that sounded weird”). For quick fixes, it’s incredible. For adding entire paragraphs, it’s still not quite there.
AI features that actually matter:- Filler word removal: one click removes “um,” “uh,” “you know,” “like.” Saved 4 minutes of episode runtime.
- Studio Sound: AI audio enhancement that makes any microphone sound like a professional studio. It works — my $60 USB mic sounded like a $400 Shure SM7B.
- AI-generated show notes: Descript reads your transcript and generates episode descriptions, timestamps, and social media clips. Not perfect, but saves 20 minutes of manual work.
- Screen recording (added bonus): If you do video podcasts, Descript’s screen recording + editing is excellent.
- Text-based editing is genuinely revolutionary — you’ll never want to edit waveforms again
- Filler word removal is flawless and saves huge time
- Studio Sound dramatically improves audio quality
- AI show notes and social clips are time-savers
- Overdub (AI voice) for quick fixes
- Collaboration features for teams (shared projects, comments)
- Video editing with the same text-based approach
- Overdub (AI voice) isn’t convincing enough for more than quick fixes
- Transcription accuracy drops with accents or background noise
- $24/month for the Creator plan (the one with most AI features)
- The free tier is too limited (1 hour of transcription, watermarked exports)
- Desktop app is resource-heavy — my laptop fan spins up every time
- Occasional sync issues between transcript and audio on longer projects
Adobe Podcast: The Audio Engineer in a Box
Adobe Podcast is NOT an editor. It’s an audio enhancement tool with some editing features tacked on. But the enhancement is so good that it deserves its own category.
AI Audio Enhancement (Enhance Speech): This is the reason to use Adobe Podcast. Upload any audio — recorded in a coffee shop, on a laptop mic, in a room with terrible echo — and Adobe’s AI makes it sound like you recorded in a professional studio.I tested this with my actual episode audio (already decent quality) and with a deliberately bad recording — me talking in my kitchen with the refrigerator humming, traffic noise from the window, and my chair squeaking. The enhanced version of the bad recording was BETTER than my raw episode audio. The refrigerator hum vanished. The traffic noise disappeared. My voice was crisp and present, like I’d been in a sound booth.
This isn’t just EQ and noise reduction. It’s AI reconstruction of your voice signal. The results are sometimes uncanny.
Mic Check: Before you record, Adobe Podcast analyzes your microphone setup and room acoustics. It tells you if you’re too close, too far, or if your room has too much echo. For beginners with zero audio knowledge, this is genuinely helpful. The editing experience: Adobe Podcast has basic editing — cut, trim, add music. It’s nowhere near Descript’s text-based editing. You’re still working with waveforms. For simple podcasts (talking head, no complex editing), it’s enough. For anything with multiple segments, music cues, or heavy editing, you’ll want a real editor. What Adobe Podcast does well:- Enhance Speech is the best AI audio cleanup I’ve tested (and I’ve tested a lot)
- Mic Check prevents recording problems before they happen
- Free to use (for now — Adobe will probably add limits eventually)
- Professional results with zero audio engineering knowledge
- Browser-based — nothing to install, works anywhere
- Integrates with Adobe’s other tools if you’re in that ecosystem
- Not a real editor — basic cuts and trims only
- No text-based editing like Descript
- No video support
- No local recording for remote interviews (you’ll need Riverside or Zencastr for that)
- Adobe will probably put this behind a paywall eventually
- Limited export options (MP3 only)
- No collaboration features
Riverside: The Remote Interview Champion
Riverside isn’t primarily an AI podcasting tool — it’s a remote recording platform that happens to have AI features. But those AI features are getting good enough that I’m including it here.
Local recording: This is Riverside’s core feature and the reason you’d choose it over Zoom for podcast interviews. Each participant’s audio is recorded locally on their computer, then uploaded to Riverside’s servers. The result: studio-quality audio from every guest, regardless of their internet connection.I tested this by having a friend join me from across town on a spotty WiFi connection. The Zoom recording had compression artifacts, dropouts, and that characteristic “video call voice” quality. The Riverside recording sounded like she was in the room with me.
AI features (new in 2026):- Magic Clips: AI identifies the most engaging moments and creates short social media clips. It’s not perfect — it picked a moment where I was talking about tax deductions as “engaging” — but it gives you a starting point.
- AI Transcriptions: Fast and reasonably accurate. Supports 100+ languages. The transcript editor is basic compared to Descript.
- AI Show Notes: Similar to Descript — generates episode summaries, timestamps, and key topics. Works well enough.
- Background Noise Removal: Good, but not Adobe Podcast level. It removes consistent noise (fans, hum) but struggles with intermittent sounds (dog barking, door slamming).
- Local recording means perfect audio quality from every guest
- Separate audio tracks for each participant (essential for editing)
- The best tool for remote interviews, period
- AI clips are a good starting point for social media
- Free tier includes 2 hours of recording (good for testing)
- Video recording up to 4K
- Not an editor — you record here, then edit elsewhere
- AI features are supplementary, not core
- Paid plans start at $19/month (Standard) and $29/month (Pro)
- The “Magic Clips” AI is hit-or-miss — about 30% of suggested clips are usable
- Transcription isn’t as fast as Descript’s
- No AI voice generation or text-based editing
How I Actually Use These Tools Now
After testing all three, here’s my actual workflow:
1. Record: I use Riverside for guest episodes (perfect local audio) or just record directly into Descript for solo episodes.
2. Clean up: If the audio needs it, I run it through Adobe Podcast’s Enhance Speech. For my usual recording setup, this step is optional — Descript’s Studio Sound is good enough.
3. Edit: Descript, every time. Text-based editing has ruined waveform editing for me. I can’t go back.
4. Polish: Add intro/outro music in Descript, generate show notes with AI, create social clips.
Total time per episode: about 45 minutes, down from 3+ hours. Even accounting for the $24/month Descript subscription, at my freelance rate of $75/hour, I’m saving roughly $170 worth of time per episode. The math works.
The Bottom Line
If you’re a solo podcaster doing your own editing: Descript. The text-based editing alone is worth the subscription. Studio Sound handles the audio cleanup.
If you record in terrible environments: Adobe Podcast (free!) for audio enhancement, then edit wherever you want.
If you interview guests remotely: Riverside for recording, then Descript (or your editor of choice) for post-production.
If you’re on a tight budget: Adobe Podcast (free audio enhancement) + Audacity (free waveform editor). It’ll take longer, but your audio will sound professional.
[Image: adobe-podcast.png – Adobe Podcast AI Enhance Speech interface]
