The Soundtrack of Everyday Life: Silke Zetzsche on AI, Relevance, and the Next Decade of Audio Creative

To celebrate AudioTrack's 10th anniversary, Adwanted sat down with some of the industry's leading audio practitioners for a special episode of The Media Leader Podcast. Across three conversations, host Charli West explored what makes audio advertising memorable, how digital transformation is reshaping the creative process, and where AI genuinely fits in.

We're proud that Silke Zetzsche, VP of Global Commercial Partnerships for Agency & Adtech at AudioStack, was one of the voices featured. She joined producer-director Pam Myers (Rorschach Radio), radio data analyst Jason Brownlee (Colourtext), freelance producer Nick Angell, and Trisonic founder and CEO Matt Hopper. Charli brought Silke in to talk about how audio creative is changing in a digital world, and whether the craft is keeping up with the technology.

From broadcast medium to the soundtrack of everyday life

Silke began with how much audio listening has changed over the last ten years: “It's no longer one place where you consume audio. It's actually everywhere. Audio is becoming the soundtrack of everyone's life. It's very much about what you enjoy, what you like, what you're interested in, and I think audio brings that out in a very creative and imaginative way.”

That shift changes what great creative looks like. In Silke's words, it's “less broadcasting one asset to many” and “much more about relevance.” Technology's role there isn't “to replace creativity, but actually to create more relevance and make it so much more like a living, breathing system,” one that brands can use to create more engaging and more effective advertising.

Technology takes away the friction, not the creativity

Asked how advertisers can keep quality high while making many versions of an ad, Silke was clear: “Technology doesn't take creativity away. In fact, it makes the laborious tasks and processes much simpler and easier.”

She pointed to production as the thing that has held audio back. Making audio has traditionally been slow, manual, and static, which is part of why it has so often sat apart as a standalone channel. With that friction gone, brands can connect their data to their creative and personalize at scale. Audio can then take its place in the omnichannel marketing mix. As she put it: “If you want to create a data-driven marketing ecosystem, audio has to be part of that.”

Relevance is about storytelling, not saying someone's name

Silke remembers the early days of programmatic audio, when the industry debated whether ads should say a listener's name. Many people found that creepy. For her, real personalization is subtler: it draws on context such as where someone shops, which podcast categories they enjoy, and what music they listen to.

Why audio connects so deeply

Silke explained why this matters with a personal example: “I'm German. If I hear someone who speaks German, I immediately dial into that, because it's part of my upbringing and my heritage. And I think audio does that also from an advertising perspective.”

She traced that instinct back to the very start of life: the first sound a baby hears in the womb is its mother's heartbeat, and it's a sound that comforts. Sound, voice and familiar accents make people tune in. With smart speakers, voice-led customer service, retail media and in-store audio all growing, Silke sees a real chance for brands to “speak with people rather than at them.” That starts with a question many brands still haven't asked: what does my brand sound like, not just what does it look like?

The next decade: scale, localization, and responsible AI

Looking ten years ahead, Silke named the biggest opportunity as “the scaled, personalized style of creative.” She noted that AudioStack recently launched DynamicCreative as a self-serve solution, so any organization can now scale its audio advertising within their existing workflows, including across multiple languages for global brands that need to localize. Because people listen on the commute, at home, and in their spare time, she argues audio belongs at every touchpoint of an omnichannel strategy.

She also sees a responsibility that comes with that opportunity: to lead on transparency, trust, and the rights around voices and music. Audio is one of the most trusted media there is, and she believes the industry should shape AI's role to protect that. Her framing returns to the theme of the whole conversation: that AI “doesn't replace creativity, it amplifies creativity.”

Advice for brands: connect the system, not just the tools

For advertisers starting with AI in audio, Silke's advice is to start with use cases: how the brand wants to sound, and who it wants to work with. Brands new to audio can test and trial their sound, their own data, and different inventories and channels. Established audio brands can go further and carry a consistent sonic identity across in-store, TV, podcasts and streaming.

Above all, she urges brands to think about AI transformation as a whole rather than tool by tool:

AI orchestration delivers the true value, not siloed AI tools.

Listen to the full episode

The episode also covers regionality and sonic branding, the “95% rule” of audio creative, and a wider discussion of AI's role in audio. It's a great listen for anyone thinking seriously about where audio advertising is headed.