An AI news app called ParticleSince former Twitter engineerscan now follow the news on podcasts as well as news published on the web.
Just ahead of its recent Android release, Particle introduced a feature called Podcast Clips, which searches for the most interesting and relevant moments across many types of podcasts, then includes those clips alongside related news in its feed.
So instead of listening to a long podcast just to catch the 45 seconds of interesting commentary, you can play the clip while you read the news on Particle. You also have the option to read the transcript of the clip, as words are highlighted as they are spoken.
“We’ve done this for basically any hot topic: if there’s a podcast that’s talking about it, or it’s relevant, we have all those clips,” the Particle CEO said. Sarah Beykpourformer senior director of product management at Twitter, told TechCrunch. “It’s a really cool way, when you read or discover a story, to get a sense of what people are saying about it? What’s the commentary?”
This addition recognizes a shift in the information ecosystem that has been underway for years. Not only are there more people receive their news thanks to podcasts and trust them as reliable sources, but support is also become a destination for the latest news and major announcements from public figures.
Tech CEOs, in particular, are now looking for user-friendly podcast hosts to deliver their talking points instead of trying to work with traditional media outlets, like Bloomberg reported in 2024.
This makes it even more essential to pay attention to podcasts if you want to keep up to date with current events.
Beykpour says the particles use model integration to understand when podcasts relate to a given news story. These models are provided by the same companies that offer LLM models, but they are not generative AI technologies, she explains.
“We use vector embeddings to understand that these different parts of the podcasts relate to these different stories,” notes Beykpour. “A single podcast might cover 10 or 20 stories, so we use AI to understand that. We also use AI to do some of the logic around cutting and understanding when to start and end a clip.”
The company leverages technology from ElevenLabs for transcription. However, some of the technology that identifies exactly where to cut audio is part of Particle’s secret sauce.
The idea of leveraging podcasts to better understand commentary around current events is also something newsrooms are looking more closely at these days. As The Nieman laboratory reported This month, the New York Times used a custom AI tool that uses LLMs to transcribe and summarize new episodes from dozens of right-wing and more conservative podcasts to better understand what influencers on that side are saying about the news.
Particle’s Podcast Clips feature isn’t just about news. Since the app already includes different entities, such as people, places, or objects, you can go to the page of a notable personality, such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, to see all of their appearances on podcasts organized as a feed.
Particle has also been busy building other features. The company made its first attempt at monetization with Particle+, an optional $2.99/month (or $29.99/year) subscription that gives you access to premium features. These include the ability to use natural language to summarize news in the style you prefer; choose from different voices when using the custom audio stream; “Listen to the news”; unlimited crosswords; handling private questions with its AI chatbot; and more.
The Android version also brings a few other notable changes. The Browse tab now includes news articles, like the 2026 Winter Olympics, in addition to typical sections like politics, technology, or entertainment. Additionally, when you tap on an entity, you will see a new page with the definition, stories, articles, related entities and related topics.
Particle doesn’t share data on user activity or conversion rates, but Beykpour pointed to the app’s international audience, pre-Android. On a weekly basis, 55% of Particle’s users are outside the US, with India (15%) being its largest market after the US.
Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after spending more than three years at ReadWriteWeb. Before becoming a journalist, Sarah worked in IT across several industries including banking, retail and software.
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