London Startup Async Bets on AI to Kill the Edit Suite and Opens Its Engine to Developers
The platform formerly known as Podcastle is making a bold play to redefine how content gets made
London-based startup Async (formerly Podcastle) has launched what it describes as the content industry’s first fully agentic production workflow, and the ambition behind it is anything but modest.
The platform update replaces the traditional timeline editor, long the backbone of audio and video post-production, with a conversational interface. The update lets creators bypass manual timelines and produce ready-to-publish content simply by chatting — cutting footage, shaping stories, adding voiceovers, and enhancing video and audio quality through natural language. According to company data, this automation reduces the post-production time for a one-hour recording from the industry standard of 20–48 hours to several minutes.
For a media industry still wrestling with the economics of content at scale, that claim will raise eyebrows — and expectations. Adobe’s own research suggests 86% of creators are already experimenting with generative AI tools, yet the grunt work of reviewing raw footage and assembling usable sequences remains stubbornly hands-on. Async is positioning itself as the platform that finally closes that gap.
Alongside the platform update, the company has released the Async Voice API. The API provides direct integration with the same low-latency voice production infrastructure that powers Async’s entire platform, enabling developers to build real-time conversational systems, streaming solutions, and live production tools. The company says the API is designed to offer one of the strongest quality-to-cost ratios currently available in the voice AI market, operating on a flexible pay-as-you-go basis.
“We’re on a mission to democratize content production for everyone. Nobody should need to master multiple applications just to execute a single creative idea. We’re transitioning from isolated tools to integrated systems that truly understand what creators want to achieve,” explained Arto Yeritsyan, CEO and Founder of Async. “Manual editing as we know it is becoming obsolete. This release makes the production mechanics disappear entirely—you express your creative vision, and it becomes reality. The role shifts from editor to director.”
The dual launch reflects a broader strategic shift. Where Podcastle was a creator-first podcast tool, Async now positions itself as a unified infrastructure play — serving individual creators, enterprise marketing and communications teams, and software developers from a single platform. Three distinct product tiers sit beneath one roof: an AI-powered studio for creators, a scalable branded content workspace for businesses, and the newly public Voice API for developers.
The commercial model is evolving in step. Regular subscriptions cover platform access, while credits power the more compute-intensive agentic features — a hybrid approach designed to let users scale their AI usage on demand without committing to a fixed ceiling.
The rebrand itself is telling. Founded in 2020 as a Chrome extension that converted articles into podcasts, the company has grown into a platform used by millions, picking up Product Hunt’s Golden Kitty Award, a Webby Award, and G2’s Overall Market Leader status along the way. Its $23.5 million in total funding, including a $13.5 million Series A in 2024, comes from a roster that includes Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, Mosaic Ventures, RTP Global, Point Nine, and Sierra Ventures.
The broader market tailwind is considerable. Global creator economy forecasts point to a tenfold expansion, potentially surpassing $1.3 trillion by the mid-2030s. If Async’s bet on agentic AI proves out, the London startup could find itself at the centre of that shift — not as a tool in a creator’s toolkit, but as the infrastructure underneath it.
Audio production is available now. Video capabilities are expected to follow. New users can access a one-week free trial via the Async web platform.
