How to Use ChatGPT or Claude to Find Podcasts to Guest On

You can use ChatGPT or Claude to find podcasts to guest on by giving it a clear brief about you and your listener, asking for a shortlist with links, and then checking every show yourself. The assistant is good at the slow parts, like sorting, fit checks and first drafts, but the final pitch should be yours and every contact should come from the show's own site.

Below are prompts you can copy for each step, the checks that keep you from pitching a show that does not exist, and how to connect an assistant to a real podcast database so it stops guessing.

Can ChatGPT or Claude find podcasts to guest on?

Yes, with a catch. A chat assistant without web search answers from what it learned in training. That data can be old, and the model can produce a show name, host or email address that looks right and is wrong.

Anthropic's own guide to reducing hallucinations says even advanced models sometimes write things that are factually incorrect. Its advice is to let the model say it does not know and to ask it to back claims with sources. That works for podcast research too.

Three rules before you start:

• Turn on web search if your plan has it, so every show comes with a link you can click.
• Tell it not to guess. Ask it to write NOT FOUND instead of filling a gap.
• Verify every show and contact on the show's own site. Never email an address that only appears in the chat.

What should you tell the AI before asking for shows?

Most bad results come from a vague request like "find podcasts for me." Write a short guest brief once and paste it at the top of every chat. Keep it to a few lines:

• Who you are and what you have done, with one or two links.
• Three topics you can talk about from real experience, each with a specific story or result.
• Who the listener is: their job, their problem, what they want to learn.
• Languages you can record in, and formats you are happy with.
• Shows you have already been on, so it does not suggest them again.

The more specific the brief, the less the assistant has to fill in. If you have a guest bio already, paste that too.

Prompt 1: find podcasts that fit your topic

Use this with web search on:

Using web search, find 15 podcasts whose listeners match the person in my brief.
For each show give:
- show name and a link to its own website or directory page
- the date of its most recent episode
- titles of two recent episodes that had a guest
- a link to its guest or contact page, if it has one
If you cannot find a field, write NOT FOUND. Do not guess host names or emails.
Leave out shows with no new episode in the last 60 days.

Ask for 15 so you can drop a third of them and still have a useful list. If the results lean toward huge shows that rarely take outside guests, ask for smaller, niche shows instead. Our guide on where to find podcasts that accept guests covers other places to build the list by hand.

Prompt 2: check fit from recent episode titles

This is where AI is most useful, because you give it the data. Copy the last 10 episode titles and descriptions from the show's own site or podcast app, then paste them in:

Here are the last 10 episodes of a podcast. Using only this text:
1. Does this show interview guests, or is it mostly the host alone?
2. Which of my three topics fits best, and why?
3. What angle on that topic has the show not covered yet?
4. Rate the fit from 1 to 5 with a one line reason.
If the text does not answer a question, say so.

Because the episodes are in front of it, the assistant cannot invent them. You get a fast fit check and a pitch angle in one go.

Prompt 3: a ChatGPT podcast pitch prompt in your voice

AI pitches sound like AI pitches because the model has no sample of how you write. Fix that by pasting two or three emails you wrote yourself:

Here are three emails I wrote, so you can match my voice.
Write a podcast pitch to [host] at [show], under 150 words.
Mention the episode "[title]" and what I took from it.
Offer one episode idea from the angle we found, with two possible titles.
Add one line of proof with a link. No flattery, no buzzwords.

Then edit it. Cut anything you would not say out loud. If you could send the same email to five shows by changing only the name at the top, it is still too generic. For the structure itself, see our podcast guest pitch template.

Prompt 4: build a pitch tracker

Assistants are good at turning a messy list into a clean table:

Turn the shows we kept into a table with these columns:
Show, Link, Contact page, Angle, Episode I referenced, Date pitched,
Follow-up date, Status, Notes.
Leave Date pitched, Follow-up date and Status empty.

Paste the table into a spreadsheet and keep it updated by hand. How many rows to work on each week is a capacity question, which we cover in how many podcasts should you pitch.

How do you check what the AI gives you?

Give each show five minutes before it goes in the tracker:

1. It exists. Search the name in a podcast app and open the show's own website.
2. It is active. The latest episode is recent.
3. It books guests. Recent episodes have names other than the host.
4. The contact is real. The guest form, booking page or email is on the show's own site, not only in the chat.
5. The host is right. The name in your pitch matches the one on the show's site.

Anything that fails a check comes off the list. This takes far less time than a bounced email or a pitch to a show that ended last year.

How do you connect ChatGPT or Claude to a real podcast database?

The fix for made-up answers is to give the assistant real data. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI apps like Claude and ChatGPT connect to outside tools and databases. With a podcast database connected, the assistant searches actual records instead of guessing.

One option is the connector for Prends, a podcast guest marketplace that is free. Its server address is https://prends.app/mcp.

Set it up in Claude

1. Open Customize, then Connectors, click Add and choose Add custom connector.
2. Paste https://prends.app/mcp as the URL, then click Add. Or use this one-click link, which opens the same dialog with the name and URL filled in.
3. Click Connect, sign in or create a free account, and click Allow.
4. In a chat, switch the connector on in the tools menu and ask something like "Find three Spanish AI podcasts that take guests and draft a pitch."

Anthropic's help page on custom connectors using remote MCP lists which plans can add them and where the menu sits in your version. It also advises connecting only to servers you trust and reviewing the permissions you grant.

Set it up in ChatGPT

1. Go to chatgpt.com/plugins and click +.
2. Choose Add custom MCP server, paste https://prends.app/mcp and confirm.
3. Sign in in the window that opens and click Allow.
4. In a new chat, turn the connector on from the tools menu and ask for a shortlist.

OpenAI renames these menus from time to time. Its developer docs on connecting an MCP server to ChatGPT show the current path if yours looks different.

What the connector can do

• Search podcasts by topic and language, and filter for shows that take pitches.
• Show a podcast's details, including how that show says to pitch it.
• Search guests and hosts who are members, and set up your profile by interviewing you.
• Draft requests to members. You approve each one before it sends, unless you turn on auto-send yourself.
• Search podcasts without signing in at https://prends.app/mcp/public.

What it cannot do

• It never gives out email addresses. Emails are shared only after a request is accepted.
• It sends requests only to members. For a show whose host is not a member, you get the show's own pitch route and send the pitch yourself.
• It does not get around the rules. Privacy settings, daily limits and reviews apply as they do on the site, and recipients see "Sent with an assistant."
• It does not write your best pitch for you. Edit every draft.

Where to start this week

Write your guest brief today. Run Prompt 1, check the results, and keep the five shows that pass all five checks. Run Prompt 2 on each, send three pitches you have edited by hand, and log them in your tracker. If you would rather start from a list of shows that already take guests, browse podcasts by topic and language.