5 unique AI startups from YC 2023
Future of Product
Each week, Max interviews a different AI founder in order to show you how to use AI to build better product experiences.
Now that the dust has settled on YC ‘23 - who stands out?
With a sudden boom in AI startups in YC's Winter '23 batch, we got a sneak peek of what the future might hold, thanks to some bold new tech and the ambitious folks behind it. Summer ‘23 has proven that AI is here to stay, and with it we have a large batch of fascinating new AI startups to dig into. But, before we dive in and take a look at a few of the most promising AI startups from YC’s combined 2023 class, here’s a few fun facts about this year’s batch of YC companies:
What do the above numbers tell me? Well, with 77% of the Winter batch of companies pre-revenue at the time of their YC enrollment, it would be more fair to think of the majority of companies on this list more as concepts than as tangible products. So, while I typically cover AI products in the context of how they can be directly leveraged for product workflows, I’ve chosen these products more for their novelty and general interest factor than anything else. Instead, let’s use this list as a chance to explore - to see what the AI dreamers of today have in store for us tomorrow. Feel free to take your product hat off for a second and just imagine what the world might look like if these companies succeed.
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1. AiSDR
“AI sales prospecting, replace your SDR with AiSDR”
What do they do?
AiSDR is currently building a sales automation platform that promises to help you “replace your SDR with AiSDR”. In its end state, the product promises to do everything an SDR (sales development respresentative) does; qualifying inbound leads, creating and sending out email campaigns personalized to the recipient, and even directly corresponding with prospects with the goal of pushing the prospect to set up a sales meeting with a real human sales team member.
Why is it interesting?
Where a lot of companies dance around the topic of labor replacement, AiSDR seems to be leaning into the promise that they’ll replace SDR headcount entirely. They point out the fact that companies spend around $80,000 on average on a typical human SDR - and claim that they can cut this cost by 90% while increasing the overall pipeline driven in the process.
As far as their messaging & general positioning goes, I think it’s either boom or bust for AiSDR and companies who choose to take the direct route of messaging their capacity to out-and-out replace roles rather than augmenting them. While the message is clear and valuable - you can cut costs and increase pipeline simultaneously; there remains the human element of not exactly appreciating being replaced by robots. For this reason, I actually haven’t seen many AI companies using this direct, efficiency-driven approach to messaging their products. Most prefer to pitch their offerings as copilots, or software that can make the work of a human more efficient without completely replacing their role.
It remains to be seen how the industry’s direction will shake out - will executives become less resistant to full-on automation overtime in favor of cutting costs, paving the way for more ‘autopilots’, or will copilots win out? Let me know what you think down in the comments.
2. Flint
“The copilot for K-12 teachers”
What do they do?
Flint focuses on helping teachers automate the content-generation portions of their work. With the average teacher spending 10 or more hours per week creating content tailored to their students’ needs, Flint promises to give those hours back - empowering teachers to spend more time decompressing and focusing on other important classroom tasks.
Why is it interesting?
In a time where education professionals are scrambling to contain and react to AI use on the part of their students, Flint is rather unique in its positioning as a tool that actually arms teachers with their own AI copilot. In contrast to AiSDR, Flint is very much in the vain of a copilot, with their pitch (adjust reading levels for different student ages & aligning assignments with standards like common core, etc) reading similarly but not identically to the job description of a teaching assistant. Note though that rather than positioning themselves as a replacement for the TA role, they anchor themselves in augmenting teachers’ work.
It’s undoubtable that AI will play a big role in teachers’ lives in the future, and from my perspective, Flint is a realistic look at what the teacher of tomorrow could look like today.
3. Orbio Earth
领英推荐
“Tracking methane emissions with satellites”
What do they do?
Methane is the most potent greenhouse gas commonly emitted by industries around the world. While its half life in the atmosphere is vastly shorter than carbon dioxide (about a dozen years compared to 300-1,000 years), it is significantly more heat-absorbing, and has been especially confounding for climate scientists due to the lack of infrastructure in place for tracking its proliferation. Orbio Earth is setting out to change that starting at the asset level, by helping emitters accurately estimate their output - a service in high demand due to the negative ramifications of mismanaging methane emissions (stock devaluations, devalued and stranded assets, and the obvious one: global warming).
Why is it interesting?
By aligning the incentives of the polluters with those of the scientific community, Orbio Earth has a real chance to make a difference in the way we quantify (and therefore, regulate) the amount of methane entering the atmosphere. The reason I chose to highlight Orbio is that a sizable portion of Q1, 2023 venture capital was reallocated out of climate tech (Read TechCrunch’s article Climate tech tapped the brakes in Q1. Will the slowdown continue? for more on that) and into AI startups - leading some to question whether the climate tech industry would be overshadowed by breakthroughs in generative AI. Orbio is a rebuttal to that assertion - and provides a glimmer of hope that AI can actually be the transformative catalyst for innovation across industries that so many believe it to be.
4. Magicflow
“Webflow for AI development”
What do they do?
Magicflow gives you a toolbox of AI platforms like ChatGPT & Stability AI - and empowers you to build AI workflows in your product without ever touching a line of code. The example they give on their homepage is taking a user-submitted image of a couch, automatically removing it from its background, creating various living room scenes based on the context that the image in question is a couch, and placing the sofa directly into the composition, all without additional user input.
Why is it interesting?
Like all products on this list, Magicflow is very raw, but immediately upon discovering the startup, my brain went wild coming up with possibilities for how the software could be leveraged to take good app experiences and make them great ones with the added touch of generative AI. Combine it with other no code tools and it’s remarkably possible to create unique, highly-engaging experiences for users without ever learning a single line of code. I expect more products like this to hit the scene in time, and its very possible they’ll usher in an era of creator-driven AI experiences the same way that no-code website builders empowered anyone to create a high-class website.
Can you think of any use cases you could solve for with Magicflow? Let me know down in the comments.
5. Linum
“Midjourney for video”
What do they do?
Here’s how Linum describes themselves: “over the next ten years, we’re going to witness a shift in animation, tv, and film similar to what we’ve seen with YouTube - where most content will be generated by everyday people. At Linum, we’re using AI to build the tools that will enable this transition.” In other words, Linum’s providing software that generates video from text input - a step towards automated video content generation that has been hinted at and speculated over ever since AI image generation initially hit the scene.
Why is it interesting?
There was just no chance I was going to see the tagline “Midjourney for video” and not explore a little deeper. For myself and many other designers, artists and creators, Midjourney has been a game changer. I used to spend days if not weeks working on custom illustrations for my projects - Midjourney has cut that time down to mere minutes. I and many others have waited with bated breath for the Midjourney of video, and while I can’t really say that it’s here yet, the fact that people like Linum are building that very experience in their open beta is a definitive sign of what’s to come.
When this tech is fully realized, how will it impact the film, video game and content industries? Let me know what you think down in the comments.
Conclusion
The startups of today are the visionaries and pioneers of tomorrow, and if they succeed, we may just end up living in a world that seamlessly integrates AI into our lives. It’ll be exciting to watch these startups evolve and see which approach - the autopilot or the copilot - becomes the dominant trend in AI applications. Your thoughts and insights on these startups and the future of AI are most welcome in the comments section.
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