Huxan app created by former NotebookLM developers that allowed users to submit a prompt and create a podcast or podcast series on a topic is being shut down. The announcement comes a day after Spotify launched a personal podcast feature that 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. After that, the company will delete all data related to the users. The startup did not specify the reason for the shutdown.
“We’ve made the decision to retire Huxe. The team is moving on to new things and we won’t continue developing the product,” according to an email sent to customers.
The consumer AI market is highly competitive, as the core products of startups often turn into commercialized features of large companies. Podcasting for knowledge is on a similar trajectory. After NotebookLM released the feature, other major companies like Adobe, Amazon, ElevenLabs, Meta, and now Spotify have emulated the feature in some way. Google also launched a separate feature for creating podcasts based on your Discover feed.
Huxe was started in late 2024 by ex-Googlers Raiza Martin, along with Jason Spielman and Stephen Hughes. The startup had raised $4.6 million in funding from Conviction, Genius Ventures, Figma CEO Dylan Field, and Google Research chief scientist Jeff Dean.
Other startups, co-founders of Anchor and the Oboe app ex-Spotify executives and Sunpart of an a16z speedrun cohort, they are trying to build an audience for audio-focused learning.
As AI models improve, they can convert one format to another, from text to audio and audio to video. Companies that focus on only one type of conversion mode for consumers may struggle to drive long-term usage and revenue for their apps.
Because of AI, companies are shipping features quickly and bringing their products to feature parity, which can affect some startups. In Huxe’s case, creating a podcast about a topic became a commoditized feature in many apps and services. This could prove difficult to scale the service to millions of users and get them to pay for the app.
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