All of our judging is conducted by amazing people from across the podcasting industry. You can take a look at who has been confirmed for our 2026 awards here.

Last year we sent feedback from the judges to all entrants, which was collated by AI. This caused some confusion and upset, which we hadn't anticipated and for which we apologise. With over 400 entries it wasn't possible to read every feedback report before being sent out, so issues couldn't be picked up in advance. 

We're looking into other options for providing feedback this year, and we'll update this section in due course.

Our Policy on the Use of AI

All entries are reviewed by multiple judges based on the information provided in the application form. This year we didn't ask entrants to tell us when they'd used AI. While some did volunteer the information in their citations, some entrants didn't.

For 2026, we highlighted the possibility of AI to judges, but did not ask or expect them to differentiate between AI and human-created work. Some judges left comments where they felt appropriate and panels took this into consideration in their discussions. Knowing that the Best Podcast Jingle and Best Podcast Artwork were the most likely categories to utilise AI, we assigned a large number of judges to these categories to help create a fair assessment of the pieces submitted.

We do also appreciate that AI can be a useful tool for many independent podcasters that are limited in time and resources to create their shows and assets. For this reason, using AI will not automatically exclude a podcast from being shortlisted, and we will continue to trust our amazing judges to score entries based on the information submitted.

In future years, we will be asking people to tell us about the use of AI in their entries, so that the judges have all the information they need when selecting their favourites.

Fancy Being A Judge?

We're always on the hunt for excellent judges to take part in the process. If you're not sure if you're qualified to be a judge and would like to find out more then you can email us and we can have a chat about it.