Cupertino's Apple has struck a deal to recruit employees from Huxe, an AI audio startup founded by former members of Google's NotebookLM team, and to license its technology, according to a filing that surfaced Friday in the European Union's Digital Markets Act transparency database.
What the filing says
The entry, dated June 9, 2026, says Apple "will have the right to make employment offers to and hire certain employees" of Huxe AI and "receive a non-exclusive license" to its intellectual property. That makes it what the tech industry calls an acqui-hire: Apple gets people and access to technology without buying the company itself. The filing does not say which employees Apple may hire, whether anyone has been hired yet, or what Apple is paying. 9to5Mac counts it as at least the fourth AI-related deal Apple has disclosed this year.
Who Huxe is
Huxe was started after NotebookLM project lead Raiza Martin left Google in December 2024, joined by former colleagues Jason Spielman and Stephen Hughes, according to 9to5Mac. NotebookLM became known for turning a user's documents into podcast-style audio conversations. Huxe applied a similar idea to daily life: its app built spoken briefings from a user's email and calendar, created podcast-style discussions on chosen topics, and kept running audio feeds on subjects like news and sports.
The app launched by invitation in June 2025 and opened to everyone that September, when the company announced $4.6 million in funding. In May 2026 Huxe said it was shutting down, and the service went dark on May 28, with the website saying only that the team was moving on to new things. The EU filing shows Apple had notified regulators of its deal about two weeks later.
Why regulators are watching
Acqui-hires have drawn criticism for letting big tech companies absorb startups without a full merger review. 9to5Mac notes that FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said earlier this year the agency was examining these deals, and that the FTC and Justice Department began weighing changes to premerger reporting rules in March, though little has happened publicly since.
Apple has not said what it plans to do with Huxe's technology.