AI news app called Particlefrom former Twitter engineers, can now stay up to date with breaking news on podcasts and news posted online.
Just ahead of the latest Android release, Particle introduced a feature called Podcast Clips, which finds the most interesting and relevant moments in many different types of podcasts, then places those clips alongside related news in your feed.
So instead of listening to a long podcast just to catch 45 seconds of interesting commentary, you can play the clip while reading the news in Particle. You can also read a transcript of the clip instead, as the words are highlighted as they are spoken.
“We've done this for basically every news story – if there's a podcast that talks about it or is even relevant, we have all these clips” – Particle CEO Sara Beykpourformerly senior director of product management at Twitter, he told TechCrunch. “It's a really cool way, when you're reading a story or learning about a story, to find out what people are saying about it? What's the comment?”
The addition acknowledges a shift in the news ecosystem that has been underway for years. Not only are there more people getting news from podcasts and trusting them as reliable sources, but also the medium becoming a target for the latest news and most important announcements from public figures.
Tech CEOs in particular are now looking for friendly podcast hosts to share their thoughts, rather than trying to engage with traditional media outlets like Bloomberg reported in 2024
This makes paying attention to podcasts even more important if you want to stay up to date with the news.
Beykpour says Particle uses Model embedding to understand when podcasts relate to a given message. These models are provided by the same companies that provide LLM models, but they are not generative artificial intelligence technologies, he explains.
“We use vector embeddings to understand that different parts of podcasts are associated with different stories,” notes Beykpour. “A single podcast might have 10 or 20 stories, so we use AI to understand that. We also use AI to do some of the cutting logic and understand when to start and end a clip.”
The company uses ElevenLabs technology for transcription. However, some of the technology that determines exactly where to cut the audio is part of Particle's secret sauce.
The idea of using podcasts to better understand news commentary is also currently under deeper editorial scrutiny. How – Nieman Lab reported this month, The New York Times is using a custom AI tool that uses LLM to transcribe and summarize new episodes of dozens of right-wing and more conservative podcasts to better understand what influential people on the site are saying about the news.
Particle's Podcast Clips feature isn't just related to news. Since the app already recognizes things like people, places, or things, you can navigate to a page containing a significant figure, such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, to see all of his podcast appearances organized in a feed.
Particle has been busy building other features as well. The company made its first attempt at monetization with Particle+, an optional subscription for $2.99 per month (or $29.99 per year) that allows access to premium features. These include the ability to use natural language to summarize messages in your preferred style; choose from different voices when using your personalized audio channel; “Listen to the news”; unlimited number of crosswords; handling private questions using an AI chatbot; and more.
The Android version also introduces several other significant changes. The browse tab now includes current stories such as the 2026 Winter Olympics, as well as typical sections such as politics, technology and entertainment. Additionally, when you tap on an entity, you will see a new page with definition, articles, articles, related entities, and related topics.
Particle doesn't provide data on user activity or conversion rates, but Beykpour pointed to the app's international audience that wasn't yet using Android. Each week, 55% of Particle users are located outside the US, with India (15%) being the largest market after the US
