Prices rise tomorrow. Last chance for best rate.
VIEW PASSES Mel Robbins is one of the world’s most listened-to podcasters, and the woman behind the “Let Them” theory — the simple idea about relinquishing control over others that led to her chart-topping namesake podcast, a number one New York Times best-selling book, and a phrase that has taken on a life of its own across social media.
Robbins attended the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity for the very first time last month — a rare step outside of the empire she’s built. “I’m so focused on running my business, I don’t often extract myself out of it to go to big events.” But having been asked to attend with her ad sales partner, SiriusXM, 2026 was the first opportunity that could work in the schedule.
Digiday sat down with Robbins to discuss AI’s impact on the media ecosystem, why podcasting has been miscategorized by marketers, and how she plans to stay on top without chasing what’s next.
Here’s what she had to say.
The importance of Cannes to someone of Robbins’ scale
Before attending Cannes, Robbins had a view that it was just another big event. And to someone that’s so focused on building their business, it can be hard to see the value, or even justify taking time away for what appears to be a glossy week in the French Riviera.
“I now understand that this is the event where so many chief marketing officers and chief brand and chief media officers all convene, that this is where deal making gets done. It means budgets for 2027 are now getting solidified, and campaigns have been thought through. So this is really where you can make connections and meet people.”
The value is in those unplanned encounters. Like the night she returned to her hotel after the Cannes UTA event.
“I walked into the lobby and bumped into Michelle [Crossan-Matos], chief brand and experience officer at SharkNinja — who used to be CMO at Ulta Beauty where I’d done business with her,” she said. “Then in the elevator, there’s Adobe’s CMO — they’d hired me to do a corporate speech for a huge event three years ago. Where else could you put yourself in the mix of so many people at that level and have those casual bump-ins and also organize business meetings?”
It might seem strange that Robbins — whose podcast draws 11 million weekly listeners across 194 countries, and whose book The Let Them Theory sold 10 million copies in its first year —
would still find real value in those interactions. As she pointed out, her podcast is focused on making an impact in the lives of everyday people. But that comes with its own challenges. The podcast doesn’t have an endless stream of celebrity guests, it’s not breaking news or pop culture.
“We don’t get the benefit of the media and publicity lift those shows receive all the time,” she said. “I’m not based in LA, New York, or in big media cities. Our podcast is produced in Boston. If you put yourself in the current of an event where there’s a lot of people and stuff going on, the amount of press that gets generated is incredible. We saw a direct impact of my appearance at the Golden Globes, my appearance at the Time Women of the Year, to podcast downloads and book sales the following week.”
How she’s already considering the implications of AI
It’s not lost on Robbins that AI is reshaping the ground beneath the media landscape she spent years learning to work. And the pace of it demands attention.
“It’s very important for anybody to understand the pace of change with AI, and the way AI is now generating press hits, it’s mesmerizing what’s happening,” she said. “I got off the plane in Nice, and I bumped into my friend Huda from The Today Show. We chatted up a storm. She uploaded one Instagram post of the two of us bumping into each other and I responded to it. Parade magazine wrote an article about it. That, to me, is an indication you need to think about the ecosystem you’re playing in and ask yourself, what are the big events where you know the water is churned up, because if you jump into that, you will benefit from the press that comes from it.”
Her point was that AI is what makes this loop move so quickly — nowadays a casual run-in becomes a press hit almost immediately. Which is why showing up at Cannes, where the activity is concentrated along the Croisette, now produces much bigger returns.
How podcasts have shifted in the eyes of CMOs
Robbins is clear-eyed about where podcasts sit within media budgets, and about how that position has recently shifted. For years, she argued, the format was treated like an offshoot of audio, and it’s only now that the industry is catching up to what it actually offers.
“I have one of the largest shows in the world, and the impact we’re making globally is very well established and very well respected,” she said. “I’m excited that brands in particular, are recognizing the cultural dominance and impact of this format.”
For years, she argued, the dollars were in the wrong bucket. “If you asked 90% of CMOs, brand officers, and media officers where their budget for podcast spend was, they would have bucketed us with radio and audio,” she said. The truth is, we launched and had a video presence on YouTube podcasts. If you’re smart about it, you might produce an audio-first format, but you have to have video to market yourself effectively.”
But what’s changed is less about podcasting as a category, and more about what it aligns more with.
“There’s been an on-off switch in people’s minds, with the number of players jumping in with video, whether it’s Netflix, Spotify, Apple rolling out video, even Hulu is getting involved,” she said. “There’s so many different streaming services people think about as television, not as audio, so that’s what’s changed. Podcasts have always been massively dominant. I think the world is now catching up with what the opportunity is for the medium and brands.”
Staying in control, when the only thing she owns is her audience
While she gets a lot of reach from the platforms, it’s not unbeknownst to Robbins that she’s merely renting the space from the platforms. “The only thing you actually own is your newsletter list, it’s the only thing you’re in control of,” she said. “When you think about your business as a creator, I own everything I do. So if something were to happen with the platforms, there’s so much interesting tech, you just relaunch it yourself using different tech.”
That ownership is less about the infrastructure itself and more about being clear about her unique selling point — her why.
“If you’re clear about what you’re doing, why, as well as who and what it’s for, the platforms will come and go, the technology will continue to evolve, and you can use that internal guidance system to help you make decisions about what you’re going to do next.”
It’s that philosophy which has shaped her commercial model too.
“My number one goal: I want what I do to be free, which is why I love advertising and brand supporting content,” she said. “It allows me to create something that serves one person at a time at a global scale, and also makes it available to people globally for free. That’s a winning formula.”
Staying humble in a fragmented attention landscape
Even at the top of her game, Robbins guards against complacency by deliberately keeping herself at arms length from her own metrics.
“Every week when I turn to Tracy, our executive producer, and ask, “are we still doing okay?” and she’ll say, “yeah, we’re still doing okay”, and I’m legitimately surprised,” she said.
And that surprise comes from knowing how competitive the podcasting landscape is.
“I know how hard I work, but I also know how many amazing shows there are,” she said. “I know how overwhelmed people feel right now. I know how hard it is to capture somebody’s attention and to earn it, and I don’t take that for granted. I actually believe that what made us successful in 2025 will not actually create the same results in 2026.”
It’s also why she resists the question she’s often asked: what’s next?
“When I’ve created something extraordinary like the Let Them theory, why would you create a second thing and divide people’s attention?”
Which is why Robbins’ wants to take stock of where she and her team are at, and how they can build on it, without fragmenting attention even more.
“My goal in the next six months to a year is to examine every single seat in our company,” she said. “To examine every single piece of our operations, the production cycle and ask ourselves the question, how do we make this easier? How do we give people more time? How do we infuse more human creativity and ingenuity in service of that one person who’s standing in front of me in line at the grocery store? If we can do that, that’s an incredible thing to achieve.”
More in Marketing
[
Dollar Shave Club’s bet: AI makes agencies optional, not obsolete ](https://digiday.com/marketing/dollar-shave-clubs-bet-ai-makes-agencies-optional-not-obsolete/)
Dollar Shave Club makes 90% of its advertising in-house. AI is coming for the other 10%.
[
WTF is AI poisoning? ](https://digiday.com/marketing/wtf-is-ai-poisoning/)
LLM search results have become an important channel for marketers. They’re also a conduit for rivals to sow misinformation against a brand’s online profile.
[
Agency bosses say the AI gap with clients is only getting wider ](https://digiday.com/marketing/agency-bosses-say-the-ai-gap-with-clients-is-only-getting-wider/)
The more versions of this perspective that got shared, the more it became clear there was a deeper frustration underneath it from others.