What Huxe Does
The idea behind Huxe is that it doesn’t just give you a news roundup. It gives you a news roundup. It reads your inbox, syncs with your calendar, and tailors updates to whatever you actually care about - whether that’s tech news, sports, or the latest celebrity gossip meltdown. You can even build “live stations” that pull in ongoing updates about specific topics, like an endless personalized radio show.
And just like NotebookLM, it does the podcast trick: Two AI hosts “discussing” a topic in back-and-forth style. In theory, it should feel like having your own pair of podcast hosts who exist only to keep you up to speed.
First Impressions: Less “Podcast,” More “text to speech”
Here’s the thing: I love the concept. I want to wake up, press play, and have my phone talk me through the things I care about most, instead of doomscrolling through Twitter. But in reality, Huxe feels less like a conversation and more like a glorified text-to-speech app.
The “hosts” don’t really sound like they’re talking to each other. They sound like two separate AI voices reading adjacent paragraphs. The flow is off. They don’t step on each other’s sentences, they don’t chuckle at each other’s jokes, they don’t have that natural rhythm that makes a podcast feel human. It’s not two people living in my phone - it’s a script being read at me.
Contrast that with NotebookLM, which honestly felt shockingly alive for an AI tool. Those “virtual podcasters” sounded like they were in the same room, building on each other’s thoughts. Huxe just isn’t there yet.
Why It Matters
Now, I don’t want to write this off completely, because the potential here is huge. I actually agree with Huxe’s creators that the future of entertainment will move away from one-size-fits-all mass appeal toward something more personal, more curated. Why waste an hour listening to a generic news show when I can get 15 minutes tailored to my exact mix of interests?
And Huxe isn’t just passive listening. You can actually interrupt the hosts in real time if you have a question. They’ll stop talking, listen to you, give you an answer, and then pick the podcast back up where they left off. On paper, that’s brilliant - it makes you an active participant instead of just a listener. But in practice, it’s still clunky. When it works, it feels like the hosts pause their pre-written script, answer your question in isolation, and then awkwardly shuffle back into the podcast like nothing happened. Cool idea, not quite seamless execution.
But personalization isn’t enough. If this is supposed to be a podcast, it has to feel like a podcast. Right now, Huxe feels rigid and mechanical - a little too close to the uncanny valley of audio. And while I’m sure it’ll get better over time as it “learns me,” that’s not the same as building chemistry between voices.
Final Thought
I’m rooting for Huxe. The idea of a private podcast that combines highlights from my personal life with all the stuff I actually care about is fantastic. But the execution needs more soul. It needs to sound less like Siri reading the news and more like two real humans riffing in a studio. Add some humor, some banter, some “emmms" and "Umms” - make it human.
NotebookLM gave me that illusion. Huxe doesn’t - yet.
If the devs can fix that, they might really have something special here. Until then, it’s less “my new favorite podcast” and more “my emails read back to me in a slightly nicer voice.”
You can try the app for yourself here
