{"id":878164,"date":"2026-10-11T03:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T03:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878164\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T03:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T03:52:09","slug":"apple-discloses-deal-to-hire-team-and-license-tech-from-personalized-podcast-startup-huxe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878164\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple discloses deal to hire team and license tech from personalized podcast startup Huxe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apple revealed in <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/digital-markets-act-cases.ec.europa.eu\/acquisitions\" target=\"_blank\">a regulatory filing<\/a> that it has reached an agreement to bring on team members and technology from personalized audio startup Huxe, in what\u2019s commonly known as a reverse acqui-hire deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As first <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/10\/09\/apple-signs-hiring-deal-ai-podcast-startup-huxe\/\" target=\"_blank\">reported in MacRumors<\/a>, Apple disclosed to the European Commission that it has agreed to make employment offers to \u201ccertain employees of Huxe AI,\u201d and to \u201creceive a non-exclusive license to Huxe\u2019s intellectual property rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reverse acqui-hires emerged in recent years as a way for larger companies to <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/08\/23\/amazon-agi-labs-chief-defends-his-reverse-acquihire\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hire key team members and license technology<\/a> from startups without acquiring the startups outright \u2014 presumably allowing them to build up AI talent and tech without drawing as much antitrust scrutiny. (Confusingly, these deals have both been <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/1d7075d4-12f3-404e-8667-7ef42e715a4e?syn-25a6b1a6=1\" target=\"_blank\">referred to as \u201creverse acqui-hires\u201d and as plain old \u201cacqui-hires.\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the case of Huxe, the startup was founded by developers who\u2019d previously worked on <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/07\/16\/google-continues-its-renaming-streak-by-turning-notebooklm-to-gemini-notebook\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the AI-generated podcast features<\/a> in NotebookLM (recently <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/07\/16\/google-continues-its-renaming-streak-by-turning-notebooklm-to-gemini-notebook\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">renamed Gemini Notebook<\/a>). But Huxe announced on May 21 that <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/05\/22\/audio-generation-app-huxe-founded-by-former-notebooklm-developers-shuts-down\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it was shutting down<\/a>, with the team posting on <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.huxe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">the Huxe website<\/a> that the company would be removing its app from the Apple and Google stores, halting service, and deleting user data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe team is moving on to new things, and we won\u2019t be continuing development of the product,\u201d the company said. It also thanked its users, saying, \u201cThe fact that you used it, told friends about it, sent us your suggestions and your ideas, made it feel like we built it together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On June 9, shortly after Huxe\u2019s announcement, Apple notified the European Commission of its deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The filing does not say who received employment offers or if they accepted. Nor does it disclose anything about Apple\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Possibly related: Huxe\u2019s shutdown announcement came just a day after <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/05\/21\/spotify-adds-ai-powered-qa-and-briefing-generation-features-to-podcasts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spotify unveiled AI-powered podcast generation features of its own<\/a>, so Apple could be hoping to add similar functionality to its Podcasts app. Tech executives seem enamored with the idea that <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.startpage.com\/sp\/search\" target=\"_blank\">personalized audio can replace regular podcasts<\/a> (and maybe even <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/08\/01\/sam-altman-is-still-making-the-case-for-parenting-via-chatgpt\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">parent-child interaction<\/a>?), though it\u2019s not clear how many normal listeners agree.<\/p>\n<p>When you purchase through links in our articles, <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/techcrunch-affiliate-monetization-standards\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple revealed in a regulatory filing that it has reached an agreement to bring on team members and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[517,369332,74],"class_list":["post-878164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-huxe","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}