Apple has disclosed a regulatory agreement to extend employment offers to certain employees of Huxe AI and to receive a non-exclusive license to Huxe's intellectual property. The arrangement is a reverse acqui-hire, a structure that lets larger companies absorb startup talent and technology without buying the company outright, potentially to avoid antitrust attention.
Huxe, a personalized audio startup, announced on May 21 that it would shut down, removing its app from the Apple and Google stores and deleting user data. The team said it was moving on to new things. The startup's founders previously worked on the AI-generated podcast features in NotebookLM, which has since been renamed Gemini Notebook.
The filing does not say which employees received offers or whether they accepted, and Apple's plans are undisclosed. The timing is notable: Huxe's shutdown came one day after Spotify unveiled its own AI-powered podcast generation features, and Apple may be seeking similar capabilities for its Podcasts app.