Apple has agreed to hire employees and license technology from Huxe, a personalized audio startup, according to a regulatory filing the company made to the European Commission. The disclosure, which was first reported by MacRumors, confirms a deal of the type sometimes called a reverse acqui-hire. Apple told the commission it would extend employment offers to certain employees of Huxe AI and receive a non-exclusive license to the startup's intellectual property rights.
The filing does not identify which Huxe employees received offers or whether those offers were accepted. It also does not describe what Apple intends to do with the licensed technology. Apple disclosed the arrangement to the European Commission on June 9.
Reverse acqui-hires have become a common route for large technology companies seeking to add AI talent and technology without purchasing a startup outright. Such deals can let the buyer bring on key staff and secure rights to intellectual property while potentially facing less antitrust scrutiny than a full acquisition. The transactions have also been described simply as acqui-hires, and the terminology is not used consistently across the industry.
Huxe was founded by developers who had previously worked on the AI-generated podcast features in NotebookLM, which has since been renamed Gemini Notebook. The startup announced on May 21 that it was shutting down. In a message posted on the Huxe website, the team said it would remove its app from the Apple and Google stores, halt service and delete user data.
The company said in that message that the team was moving on to new things and would not continue developing the product. It thanked its users, saying that their use of the app, their recommendations to friends and their suggestions and ideas made the product feel like a joint effort. Huxe had built a product around personalized audio at a time when technology companies are competing to add AI features to media and podcast products.
The deal gives Apple access to a team whose members had already worked on AI podcast generation at Google. For a US technology audience, the arrangement is another example of large platforms absorbing talent from smaller AI audio startups through licensing and hiring rather than outright purchases.
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