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ZDNET's key takeaways

• The free Huxe app creates a custom podcast for you each morning.
• It builds content from your calendar, email, and news interests. 
• You can easily tailor interests and skip stories.

After spending a week letting a free AI-generated podcast help me get ready for my day, I don't know why I didn't start sooner.

Huxe is an app created by former Google NotebookLM developers. It pulls information from your calendar and email, plus news stories related to your interests, and turns it all into a short podcast centered on your day. I've mostly been wary of giving much time to any sort of AI-generated content, but I quickly found that Huxe is worth my time.

Also: I used NotebookLM for an entire month - here's why it really is a game changer

I work from home, and my kids' school is less than 10 minutes away, so I have maybe 20 minutes of time in the car each morning. Usually, I'll spend the drive catching up on podcasts or letting my kids pick what they want to listen to, nothing too serious. For the past week, though, I've been giving my drive time to a daily Huxe roundup. My kids are less than thrilled, but for someone who struggles to stay organized, it's been a huge help.

Setting up Huxe

The app takes less than five minutes to set up the first time. I connected my calendar and email for the "Here's your day" part of the podcast, enabled my location for local news and weather, and then chose from preselected interests. You can add your own if you don't see what you want, and the app will understand anything you enter.

Also: Want a quick daily podcast based on your interests? Try Google's latest AI experiment

The app didn't get my interests exactly right the first time it tried (I'm assuming it based those on emails and calendar events). Out of the five interests it chose, one was wrong, and two weren't significant enough for me to want to hear about them every morning (but I understand where the AI got them). You can fine-tune these selections as you go, however, so you'll always hear what you want.

How Huxe helps me stay organized

The news portion is helpful on its own. The conversation between the two AI hosts sounds natural, and you can interrupt a conversation at any time with a question if you want to learn more or skip a story you don't want to hear. The more I used the app, the more I was able to tailor it to things I specifically wanted to hear, and I found myself sitting in my car more than once after I was home to let things wrap up. 

What I quickly found most useful, though, was the calendar and email updates Huxe provided. I could easily find this information on my own, but once I get distracted by social media or get busy with other tasks, it takes me much longer to focus on what I need to do each day. Huxe isn't giving me any new information, but it's reminding me what's most pressing for my day while I'm taking care of other things.

Also: Half of all US employees use AI at work now - and waste almost 8 hours a week doing it

It will actually read the contents of your email messages for more context, highlight things that are a few days away, and even consider factors like the weather. My calendar has an entry for a tour on the weekend (I lead ghost tours in Uptown Charlotte), and Huxe reminded me about it, noting that it would be unusually warm during the tour, so I probably need to bring some water. 

Huxe has become a simple way for me to stay on top of my day without staring at a screen. I thought it might just be a novelty I used from time to time, but now it's part of my daily routine. The free app is available for both iOS and Android.