Google’s AI Notebook Take and Research Assistant Notebook Lum set out for an epic reception at launch, quickly pioneering summary and reporting, turning documents into “podcasts” and discussing topics that support research users, turning documents into “podcasts.”
Inspired by the success of the project, the three developers have been working on NotebookLM since their inception and are now building an audio-first app called Huxe. The startup said Tuesday it raised $4.6 million in funding from convictions, Genius Ventures, Figma CEO Dylanfield and Google Research chief scientist Jeff Dean.
The app was launched in June with an invitation only and is now available to everyone on iOS and Android.
Raiza Martin, along with Jason Spielman and Stephen Hughes, left Google in December 2024 to explore their own ideas. They initially launched a chatbot that leaned towards more B2B use cases, but in March 2025 they decided to build a personal assistant that could generate personalized images, videos and audio.
“At this stage, I realized that people liked having the ability to generate audio for a variety of topics. I also observed that people often used the app at certain times to keep up with the news during preparation,” Martin told TechCrunch.
With that insight, the three of them leaned over the audio and built a hack.
Huxe essentially offers daily briefings based on emails received and connects to your calendar to understand your schedule. You can also explore topics and generate podcasts like Notebooklm with AI hosts discussing topics. You can always interact with an AI host, ask questions about a topic, or ask them to explain the points in a different way.
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What’s different here is that Hakse can build a “live station” for all topics, including tech news, sports, and even celebrities gossip. After listening to the station, the app will provide you with the latest information by tapping on various sources. Helps in developing news. There is also a personalized interest feed. This automatically generates audio content of interest.
Martin said early on Notebooklm, a cohort of power users facilitated product feedback, and Huxe saw similar indications.
“This is the right product for people who spend their day on screens with lots of tabs open in their browser. Those who want to keep up with email, schedules and news can do it without looking at the screen,” she said.
Huxe is currently suited to the information market, but it could also be an entertainment-enabled use case. For example, India-based audio companies such as Pocket FM and Kuku FM tap on AI to allow users to create content. And Hakse is not the only one using audio as a media. Startups like ElevenLabs and Oboe also use audio, just like Google and Meta.
