How to Use ElevenLabs to Create a Podcast Automatically
Podcasting has never been more popular — but producing consistent, high-quality episodes takes serious time and effort. What if you could automate the entire process? With elevenlabs and a smart workflow tool like n8n, you can build a fully automated podcast pipeline that generates, voices, and publishes episodes with minimal human input.
In this guide, you'll learn exactly how to set up that system step by step.
Why Automate Your Podcast?
Most podcast creators spend hours on scripting, recording, editing, and publishing. Automation flips this model entirely. By combining AI voice synthesis from elevenlabs with workflow automation from n8n, you can:
- Generate episode scripts automatically from RSS feeds, news sources, or your own content database
- Convert those scripts into realistic, studio-quality audio using elevenlabs voices
- Export, store, and publish episodes to your podcast host without touching a single button
- Scale to multiple shows or formats simultaneously
This is not a future concept — it works right now, and the tools are accessible to non-developers.
Step 1: Set Up Your ElevenLabs Account
Head over to elevenlabs and create an account. Once inside, you'll have access to the Voice Library — a collection of pre-built AI voices with different tones, accents, and styles. You can also clone your own voice if you want the podcast to sound like you.
Navigate to the API section in your elevenlabs dashboard and generate an API key. You'll need this to connect the service to your automation workflow. Choose a voice that suits your podcast's personality — professional, warm, energetic, or conversational.
Pro Tip: Voice Cloning
If you upload at least 1 minute of clean audio of your voice, elevenlabs can clone it with impressive accuracy. This means your automated episodes still sound like you — even when you're not involved in production.
Step 2: Build the Automation Workflow in n8n
n8n is an open-source workflow automation tool that connects apps and APIs visually. Think of it as the backbone of your podcast factory. The n8n workflow will handle everything between content input and audio output.
Here's the basic flow you'll build inside n8n:
- Trigger: Schedule the workflow to run daily, weekly, or on a custom interval
- Content Source: Pull topics or summaries from an RSS feed, Google Sheets, Notion, or an AI content generator like OpenAI
- Script Generation: Use an OpenAI node inside n8n to convert the raw content into a structured podcast script
- Voice Synthesis: Send the script to elevenlabs via its API using an HTTP Request node
- Audio Storage: Save the returned audio file to Google Drive, Dropbox, or an S3 bucket
- Publishing: Optionally post to your podcast host (like Buzzsprout or Transistor) via their API
The entire n8n workflow can be built without writing code — each step is a visual node that you configure and connect.
Step 3: Configure the ElevenLabs API Node
Inside your n8n workflow, add an HTTP Request node and configure it as follows:
- Method: POST
- URL:
https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/text-to-speech/{voice_id} - Headers: Add your elevenlabs API key as
xi-api-key - Body: Pass the script text as JSON with your preferred model and voice settings
The elevenlabs API will return an audio file (MP3 or WAV) that your n8n workflow can then route to the next step — whether that's storage, email, or direct publishing.
Step 4: Add an Intro and Outro
A professional podcast always has consistent branding. You can pre-record or generate a short intro and outro using elevenlabs, then have your n8n workflow merge them with each new episode using a tool like FFmpeg (via a command node) or an audio processing API.
This gives every episode a polished, branded feel — completely on autopilot.
Step 5: Publish and Distribute
Once your audio file is ready, your n8n workflow can automatically upload it to your podcast hosting platform. Many hosts like Buzzsprout and Transistor offer API access, allowing n8n to set the episode title, description, tags, and publish date — all from the same workflow run.
You can even have n8n post a teaser to your social media channels at the same time, closing the full content loop automatically.
What Kind of Podcasts Work Best with This Setup?
Not every format suits full automation, but many do. The best use cases include:
- News briefings: Daily summaries of industry headlines
- Educational series: Structured lessons pulled from a content database
- Product updates: Internal or customer-facing announcements
- Niche roundups: Weekly curations of blog posts, papers, or videos in a specific field
With elevenlabs handling the voice and n8n handling the logic, each of these formats can run completely hands-free.
Final Thoughts
Building an automated podcast is one of the most impressive and practical applications of modern AI tools. elevenlabs delivers voice quality that rivals human narrators, and n8n gives you the workflow power to connect every piece of the puzzle without writing a single line of code.
Whether you're a solo creator trying to stay consistent or a business looking to scale content production, this stack is ready for you today. Start small — one episode, one workflow — and expand from there.
This post was created with tools we use and recommend: n8n for workflow automation, Turbotic as an AI-native automation alternative, ElevenLabs for AI voiceover, Placid for visual content creation, and Hostinger for reliable VPS hosting. Some links are affiliate links.