Steven Bartlett said one use of AI matters more to his business than anything else: translating his podcast into other languages.
“There’s nothing more important than what we’ve done for our business than translations. Period,” Bartlett said during the “What It Takes to Build” panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday.
The British entrepreneur and host of “The Diary of a CEO” The podcast was in conversation with Jessica Lessin, CEO of The Information, alongside Bret Taylor, former co-CEO of Salesforce and CTO of Meta.
Bartlett said using AI tools to translate podcasts started out as an “expensive experiment.” The problem he was trying to solve, he said, was reaching the untapped market of non-English speakers.
“If we speak only in English, we reach about 10% of the world’s population,” Bartlett added.
There were also technical challenges. Some languages use longer words, Bartlett said, meaning three-hour conversations in English could become significantly longer when translated, risking audio and video getting out of sync.
Two years ago, Bartlett announced on LinkedIn that “The Diary of a CEO” had hired a full-time data scientist who helped the company achieve a technological breakthrough, allowing it to use AI to translate the podcast into “EVERY language.”
At Davos and in the LinkedIn post, Bartlett didn’t explain exactly how AI translations work. Today, however, the videos show Bartlett speaking Spanish with a voice similar to his own, a change he says has greatly expanded the podcast’s reach.
“This month, 28% of my audience is Spanish,” he said, adding that Spanish speakers now have access to interviews with some of the world’s most high-profile podcast guests, citing his own interview with former first lady Michelle Obama as an example.
Other guests on the podcast include former Vice President Kamala Harris, Simon Cowell and psychologist Jordan Peterson.
Spotify said in its December 2025 “2025 Wrapped” press release that “The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett” was the platform’s second most listened to podcast in the world, behind “The Joe Rogan Experience.” On YouTube, Bartlett’s podcast channel has 14.5 million subscribers.