What is the future of podcasts and digital audio?

Audio keeps winning because it is flexible, intimate, and on-demand. I called it black on white on my blog on 1 April 2020: digital audio and podcasting off the charts by 2025. It landed, and it sits on my scoreboard with an 84% Prediction Accuracy Rate. Podcasts build deeper trust than most advertising ever could. Audio meets people in the car, the gym, and the commute. That ambient intimacy is why owned audio channels keep compounding while interruptive ads keep decaying. My 2030 forecast: US podcasting triples, from $8.4 billion in 2025 to over $25 billion, with video as the new engine.