Pocket FM hits $500M revenue run rate as AI powers most of its audio catalog

Pocket FM says AI powers 93% of its overall catalog and is used to produce 99% of its new content. The company still relies on human creators for ideas and storytelling, while using AI to turn those concepts into finished content at scale.

Its approach centers on AI tools built around the creative process, including models for creative writing and text-to-speech trained on production data and listener engagement signals.

Co-founder and CEO Rohan Nayak said AI has made Pocket FM’s content production about 80 times cheaper. He said 100 hours of content that previously took about a year to produce can now be made in a day.

The platform’s more than 550,000 creators are producing about 2.5 million hours of AI-powered content a year. Pocket FM’s full library now spans more than 770,000 audio series, up from about 100,000 hours in its entire catalog two years ago.

Pocket FM’s annualized revenue run rate has doubled to $500 million over the past year, after standing at about $250 million a year ago and $430 million in April. The company calculates that figure by multiplying monthly revenue by 12, rather than using contracted recurring revenue.

The platform has more than 250 million listeners across over 20 countries. The U.S. is its largest market, accounting for about 70% of annualized revenue run rate, while about $85 million comes from ads and roughly $415 million comes from users paying to unlock individual episodes.

Pocket Entertainment is extending its AI-driven model into microdramas through Pocket Saga, a three-month-old app with an annualized revenue run rate of about $15 million. Unlike Pocket FM, Pocket Saga’s content is entirely AI-produced and is currently available only in the U.S.

The company plans to enter at least two more entertainment formats over the next five years and aims to turn successful stories into books, television, and movies through licensing deals. It is also in investor talks, though Nayak said there is no immediate pressure to raise capital and no plan to go public in the next 24 months.