LinkedIn Unifies Audio Events with LinkedIn Live to Simplify Creation and Improve Viewer Experience

Lindsey Gamble / LinkedIn 

LinkedIn is retiring its native social audio feature, Audio Events, and integrating it into LinkedIn Live. Starting December 2nd, users will no longer be able to create standalone Audio Events.

For those still interested in hosting audio-only experiences, they will now need to use LinkedIn Live in combination with a third-party streaming partner like Restream, Vimeo, or StreamYard. Other updates include that only invited speakers who accept their invitations before the event can participate live, with a maximum of 16 speakers. Additionally, all events will be automatically recorded and made available for playback and sharing afterward.

Why It Matters: LinkedIn is the latest platform to phase out native social audio, following in the footsteps of Spotify, Reddit, Facebook, and others after the rise and fall of Clubhouse.

While users can still create audio-only experiences through third-party tools, the added friction may deter some. Those who previously hosted audio events may discontinue, but this shift could push more hosts toward live video events—aligning with LinkedIn’s growing emphasis on video content.

This also adds to consolidation of content formats across platforms that has been slowly happening. From Pinterest unifying Idea Pins and Pins into a single format to Instagram making all video uploads Reels, decisions like these are focused on simplifying creation and improving the user experience — something LinkedIn’s update is aiming for as well.