An Explorative Diary Study of AI-Generated Podcasts in University Education: Benefits, Challenges, and Future Directions

In this study, we explore the potential of AI-generated podcasts as an educational tool in the evolving landscape of learning media. Podcasts have grown increasingly relevant in education due to their accessibility and ability to integrate learning into everyday life. With the advent of generative artificial Intelligence (AI), there is a unique opportunity for scalable and adaptable creation of learning media. However, with novel technology, there also come new challenges. Thus, we developed fine-tuned AI-generated podcasts using Google NotebookLM, our course materials, and a custom prompt. We conducted a one-month explorative evaluation in the field using a qualitative diary study. Our study reveals that students find the podcasts beneficial for flexible everyday learning but also point toward challenges like a lack of emotional engagement and technical non-English language issues. In sum, our study highlights the current benefits and challenges of AI-generated podcasts and presents an agenda for future research.