Google’s AI note-taking and research assistant, NotebookLM, received a spectacular reception at launch. It captured people’s imaginations with its ability to quickly create summaries and reports and to turn large documents into podcasts with AI hosts discussing the topic to aid in research.
Inspired by that project’s success, three developers who worked on NotebookLM since its beginning are now building an audio-first app called Huxe. This new app similarly helps users explore topics by generating a podcast with multiple AI hosts. The startup recently announced it has raised 4.6 million dollars in funding from investors including Conviction, Genius Ventures, Figma CEO Dylan Field, and Google Research’s chief scientist, Jeff Dean.
The app first launched on an invite-only basis in June and is now available to everyone on iOS and Android. Raiza Martin, along with co-founders Jason Spielman and Stephen Hughes, left Google in December 2024 to explore their own ideas. They initially launched a chatbot focused on business use cases but decided to shift to the consumer market. In March 2025, they built a personal assistant that could generate personalized images, videos, and audio.
During this phase, the team realized users particularly enjoyed generating audio on different topics. They also observed that people often used the app at specific times to get a daily brief or catch up on news while getting ready. That insight led the three founders to focus exclusively on audio and build Huxe.
Huxe provides a daily briefing based on the emails you receive and by connecting to your calendar to understand your schedule. It also allows you to explore topics, and like NotebookLM, it generates a podcast with AI hosts discussing the subject. You can interact with the AI hosts at any point, ask questions about the topic, or request they explain points in a different way.
What sets Huxe apart is its feature that lets users build a live station for any topic, such as tech news, sports, or celebrity gossip. After you listen to a station, the app provides updates by tapping into various sources, which is helpful for following developing news. There is also a personalized interest feed that automatically generates audio content it thinks you will find interesting.
Martin noted that during the early days of NotebookLM, a group of power users drove product feedback, and Huxe is now seeing similar engagement. She said the product is well-suited for people who spend all day on their screens with many browser tabs open. These users can catch up on email, their schedule, and news without having to look at a screen.
While Huxe is currently geared towards the information market, entertainment is also a possible use case. Other audio companies, like India-based Pocket FM and Kuku FM, also use AI to let users create content. Huxe is not alone in using audio as a medium. Startups like ElevenLabs and Oboe are leveraging audio, as are larger tech companies like Google and Meta.