Apple discloses deal to hire Huxe staff and license its technology

Apple has agreed to make employment offers to some Huxe employees and receive a non-exclusive license to the startup’s intellectual property, according to a filing with the European Commission. The filing does not name the employees or say whether they accepted.

Huxe, a personalized audio startup founded by developers who previously worked on AI-generated podcast features in NotebookLM, announced on May 21 that it was shutting down. The company said it would remove its app from the Apple and Google stores, halt its service and delete user data. It said its team was moving on and would stop developing the product.

Apple notified the European Commission of its agreement on June 9, shortly after Huxe’s shutdown announcement. The filing does not describe Apple’s plans for the technology. Huxe’s founders had worked on features in NotebookLM, which was recently renamed Gemini Notebook.

The arrangement is commonly described as a “reverse acqui-hire”: a company makes offers to startup employees and licenses technology without acquiring the startup outright. TechCrunch noted that Spotify had unveiled its own AI-powered podcast generation features shortly before Huxe announced its closure. Apple may be seeking similar functionality for its Podcasts app, but the filing does not confirm that possibility.