Audio creation app Huxe, founded by former NotebookLM developers, has shut down

silencean app developed by former NotebookLM developers that allows users to submit a prompt and create a podcast or podcast series around a topic, is shutting down. This announcement comes one day later Spotify has released its personal podcast feature Which works similarly.

The company said it is removing the app from the App Store and Play Store, and if users have already installed the app, it will work for seven days. The company will then delete all data related to the users. The startup did not specify the reason for the shutdown.

“We have made the decision to wind down Huxe. The team is moving on to new things, and we will no longer continue product development,” according to an email sent to customers.

The consumer AI market is highly competitive, with startups’ core products often turning into commoditized features for larger companies. Podcasting for knowledge follows a similar path. After NotebookLM popularized this feature, other major companies were impressed Adobe, amazon, Eleven labs, meta, and now Spotify He emulated the feature in some way. Google also released A separate feature to create podcasts based on your Discover feed.

Huxe was started in late 2024 by former Google employees Raisa Martin, along with Jason Spielman and Stephen Hughes. The startup has raised $4.6 million in funding from Conviction, Genius Ventures, Figma CEO Dylan Field, and Google Research chief scientist Jeff Dean.

other startups, Founders of Achor and former Spotify execs Oboe appand sunwhich is part of the a16z speedrun group, is trying to build an audience for audio-focused learning.

As AI models improve, they are able to convert one format to another, from text to audio, and from audio to video. Companies that focus on only one type of consumer conversion method may find it difficult to achieve long-term usage and revenue for their apps.

Because of AI, companies are shipping features quickly and achieving feature parity in their products, which may impact some startups. In Huxe’s ​​case, creating a podcast about a topic has become a feature that is being commoditized in many apps and services. It can be difficult to scale the service to millions of users and get them to pay for the app.