{"id":38893,"date":"2025-09-23T14:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/38893\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T14:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:19:09","slug":"former-notebooklm-devs-new-app-huxe-taps-audio-to-help-you-with-news-and-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/38893\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NotebookLM devs&#8217; new app, Huxe, taps audio to help you with news and research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Google\u2019s AI note-taking and research assistant <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/09\/03\/googles-notebooklm-now-lets-you-customize-the-tone-of-its-ai-podcasts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NotebookLM<\/a> took off to a spectacular reception at launch, capturing people\u2019s imaginations with its ability to quickly whip up summaries and reports, and turn reams of documents into \u201cpodcasts\u201d with AI hosts discussing the topic to help users in their research. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inspired by the success of the project, three devs who worked on NotebookLM since its inception are now building an audio-first app called <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.huxe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Huxe<\/a>, which can similarly help users dive deep into topics by generating a \u201cpodcast\u201d with multiple AI hosts. The startup said on Tuesday that it had raised $4.6 million in funding from Conviction, Genius Ventures, Figma CEO Dylan Field, and Google Research\u2019s chief scientist, Jeff Dean.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The app launched on an invite-only basis in June, and is now available to everyone on <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/huxe\/id6743417504\" target=\"_blank\">iOS<\/a> and <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.huxe.android.apps.huxe&amp;hl=en_IN\" target=\"_blank\">Android<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Raiza Martin, along with Jason Spielman and Stephen Hughes, left Google in December 2024 to explore their own ideas. They initially launched a chatbot slanted towards more B2B use cases, but decided to focus on the consumer market and built a personal assistant in March 2025 that could generate personalized images, videos, and audio.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"594\" width=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/DailyBrief.jpeg\" alt=\"A pair of screenshot showing audio app Huxe's home screen where you can go through different news briefs and deepdive podcasts generated by AI.\" class=\"wp-image-3049054\"  \/>Image Credits: Huxe<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cDuring this phase, we realized that people liked having the ability to generate audio for different topics. We also observed that people often used the app at specific times to get their daily brief or catch up with news while getting ready,\u201d Martin told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That insight led the three to lean into audio and build <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.huxe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Huxe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Huxe essentially gives you a daily briefing based on the emails you receive and by connecting to your calendars to understand your schedule. It also lets you explore topics, and like NotebookLM, it will generate a podcast with AI hosts discussing the topic. You can interact with the AI hosts at any point in time, ask questions about the topic, or request them to explain points in a different way.<\/p>\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s different here is that Huxe lets users build a \u201clive station\u201d of any topic, like tech news, sports, or even celebrity gossip. After you listen to a station, the app will give you updates by tapping different sources \u2014 helpful for following developing news. There\u2019s also a personalized interest feed, which automatically generates audio content that might interest you.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"594\" width=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LiveStations-Overview.jpeg\" alt=\"A pair of screenshots showing Live Station feature on audio app Huxe. These stations are representative of topics you can follow evolve over time. Every time you open a live station, the app sends you updates.\" class=\"wp-image-3049055\" style=\"width:680px;height:auto\"  \/>Image Credits: Huxe<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Martin said that during the early NotebookLM days, a cohort of power users drove the product feedback, and Huxe is seeing similar signs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is a well-suited product for people who spend all day on their screens with tons of tabs open on their browser. People who might want to catch up on their email, schedule, and news can do that without looking at their screen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Huxe currently is suited to the information market, but entertainment can be a possible use case, too. India-based audio companies like <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/06\/20\/pocket-fm-partners-with-elevenlabs-to-convert-scripts-into-audio-content-quickly\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pocket FM and Kuku FM<\/a>, for example, tap AI to let users create content. And Huxe is not the only one using audio as a medium. Startups like <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/11\/27\/elevenlabs-new-feature-is-a-notebooklm-competitor-for-creating-genai-podcasts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ElevenLabs<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/09\/10\/after-selling-to-spotify-anchors-co-founders-are-back-with-oboe-an-ai-powered-app-for-learning\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oboe<\/a> are leveraging audio, too, as are Google and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/10\/27\/meta-releases-an-open-version-of-googles-podcast-generator\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Meta<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s AI note-taking and research assistant NotebookLM took off to a spectacular reception at launch, capturing people\u2019s imaginations&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[48,367,35590,111,139,35591,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-38893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-google","10":"tag-jeff-dean","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-notebooklm","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}