Turn Any Article into a Podcast Episode in Under a Minute

I have 47 open tabs right now. A dozen are articles I want to read. A long piece on battery chemistry. A startup post-mortem. Some researcher's blog post about protein folding that someone linked on Twitter three days ago.

I'm not going to read any of them. I know this because they've been sitting there for a week. What I needed was a way to turn those articles into podcast episodes I could listen to while doing other things.

So I built Quick Episodes for Podidex. Paste a URL, pick a voice and style, and Podidex turns it into a podcast episode. Done.

But the interesting part is what happens after you press play. Hear something you want to know more about? Hit Deep Dive and get a follow-up episode on that specific segment. Still have questions? Press the mic button and talk to your episode directly. It responds with the knowledge of every source behind it.

How to create a Quick Episode

Tap the + button on the Episodes page. You get a form with five things to fill in.

Paste your sources

One or more URLs. Articles, blog posts, papers, whatever. Podidex scrapes the content and figures out the structure. You can mix sources too. Paste a news article alongside the original research paper it references, and the episode will synthesize both.

Write a prompt

This is where you steer. Free text. You might write “explain this like I'm a software engineer who knows nothing about biology” or “focus on the business implications, skip the technical details” or just “give me the highlights.”

Pick your style tags

Ten style tags shape how the episode sounds. You can combine them. “Skeptical + Conversational” gives you someone tearing apart the argument while still making it entertaining. “Sciency + Detailed” gives you the full paper without the jargon shortcuts. The full list is in the automated podcasts guide.

Choose a voice

Eight voices, each with a preview button. The default is Bella (clear, works for everything). Heart is warmer. Onyx is deeper and more grounded. Pick the one you won't get tired of.

Set the length

Short summary of today's highlights? 5-15 minutes. Going through the latest AI research papers on your morning walk? 30-60 minutes.

Hit Generate Episode. It shows up in your episodes list with a progress indicator, usually ready in under a minute.

Deep research mode

Most of the time, Podidex works with the content you give it. Paste an article, get an episode about that article.

But some sources raise questions they don't answer. An article about a new drug might not explain the mechanism. A policy analysis might reference a study without summarizing what it found.

Flip on the Deep Research toggle, and Podidex goes beyond your source. A research agent reads the article, figures out what's missing, then searches the web to fill the gaps. It runs multiple search rounds and pulls in whatever it needs. You get an episode where the homework was done for you.

Quick Episodes vs. regular Podidex podcasts

Regular podcasts on Podidex are recurring. You pick sources and a schedule, and episodes generate automatically. Good for topics you follow daily, weekly, or monthly.

Quick Episodes are for right now. You found something, you want to hear it, you don't want to build a whole podcast around it. Fifteen seconds of setup. The episode lands in its own list, separate from your regular shows.

The episodes aren't as isolated as you'd think. Make a quick episode about CRISPR this week, then one about gene therapy next week, and the second episode can reference and build on what the first one covered. Podidex remembers across everything you create.

When this makes sense

A few ways I use it:

• Someone sends you a 6,000-word article at 4pm. You're not reading that before your commute. Paste the URL, tag it “Summarize,” and you've absorbed it by the time you park.
• You're researching a new topic and have 15 papers to get through. Run them as 10-minute episodes with the “Sciency” tag to triage which ones deserve a close read.
• You bookmark things in Pocket or Instapaper. They pile up. You never go back. Now there's a reason to actually open that list.

Quick Episodes is live on all plans. Free accounts get 60 minutes to start with all features unlocked, including episodes up to 1 hour, deep research, deep dive, and interactive voice mode. Paid plans give you 2000 minutes/month.