Before an audience of over a hundred industry professionals in Milan, the session focused on the current state and future of Digital Audio, spanning radio broadcasters, next-generation audio technologies like Audioboost, web radio, and podcast production companies. The key insight is the notable rise in user attention dedicated to digital audio streams—consistently growing across all socio-demographic segments, times of day, and media channels—but without a corresponding increase in digital market share.

The fundamental value of Digital Audio lies in its ability to generate attention and engagement at a level unmatched by other online or offline media. Recent research shows that advertising in audio streams is eight times more effective than in any visual medium, 73% of podcast listeners recall the ads they’ve heard, and over 70% of listeners appreciate contextual audio advertising when it’s delivered within relevant content.

Audioboost shared its specific expertise in Contextual Audio, leveraging AI to semantically map each piece of automatically generated content, create custom segments, and treat them as “first-party” data for ad delivery. We can even sponsor individual keywords or sentiments while maintaining Brand Safety—a factor that’s increasingly crucial in audio planning.

Spoken Articles have become an integral part of digital users’ media habits, giving us access to a growing, targetable audience through our patented intelligent technology that triggers ads only at optimal moments during text-based listening.

Listening to music or spoken content remains a personal, intimate choice, and campaigns planned with this in mind achieve stronger results. Targeting opportunities range from local and weather-based to content-driven and sentiment-based, all while respecting user privacy.

For more information, see the State of Audio Adtech Report 2025.