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Most podcast listeners don't see podcasters as influencers, yet nine in ten weekly listeners say one has changed their mind. Here's what that trust gap means for brands.
Ask podcast listeners whether the people they listen to are influencers and most will say no. Ask whether one of those people has ever changed their mind, and almost all of them say yes. That gap isn't a contradiction. It's the single most useful thing a brand can understand about podcasting.
Acast's Podcast Pulse 2025, a survey of more than 2,500 podcast listeners across nine markets carried out with research firm Differentology, put the paradox plainly. 75% said they don't consider podcasters to be "influencers". 84% said a podcaster had changed their mind about something they once believed.
This year's edition pushed the numbers further. Podcast Pulse 2026, based on 4,300 respondents aged 16 to 64 across 13 markets and fielded in August 2026, found:
Listeners don't file podcasters under "influencer". They file them under "someone I trust". That's a far more valuable place to be.
Independent research points the same way. Westwood One and Signal Hill Insights' Podcast Download Spring 2026 report found weekly podcast consumers rank podcast hosts as more influential than social media creators or celebrities, roughly twice as influential as social media influencers. That lines up with what the data shows about podcast listeners more broadly: they choose to spend long stretches of time with a voice they like.
The commercial upside is still largely untapped. Speaking at Podcast Movement NYC, Acast CEO Greg Glenday estimated that roughly 400 of the world's top 500 advertisers still have room to increase their podcast spending or enter the medium for the first time.
The format does the work. In the 2025 Pulse survey, 79% of listeners chose podcasting as the content that feels personal, like a one-to-one conversation. A podcast host isn't posting a polished fifteen-second sell. They're thinking out loud for forty minutes, week after week, often without a product in sight. Influence earned that way doesn't register as influence, which is precisely why it works.
Social influencer content tends to look like marketing even when it isn't. Podcast content tends not to look like marketing even when it is. For brands, that difference is the whole opportunity, and also the whole risk.
1. Sponsor hosts, not impressions
The trust sits with the host, so the best podcast sponsorships let the host speak in their own words about something they actually use. A tightly scripted ad read by a host who has never tried the product borrows their voice without borrowing their credibility.
2. If you make your own show, the host is the asset
When you start a podcast for your business, the instinct is often to make it sound like the brand. Listeners will trust it more if it sounds like a person. Pick a host with genuine expertise and a point of view, give them room to have real conversations, and keep showing up on a consistent schedule so that trust can compound.
3. Measure what trust actually produces
Downloads tell you how many people pressed play. They don't tell you whether you changed anyone's mind. Good measurement for a brand podcast looks at what happens next: inbound conversations, pipeline influenced, repeat listeners and the questions prospects bring up in sales calls.
4. Don't spend the trust carelessly
Listeners trust podcasters precisely because they don't feel sold to. A branded show that turns every episode into a product pitch is spending down the one asset that made the format worth investing in.
Thinking about where a podcast fits in your brand's marketing? Talk to Poddster about building a show your audience trusts, not just tolerates.
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