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Ask HN: Anyone else roll eyes at startups that went from "X" to "AI-powered X"?

by ronbenton on 5/3/25, 7:20 PM with 49 comments

This feels like the original idea wasn't good enough to work on its own and so jamming AI into the idea might get some VC capital to sustain a failed idea. Or am I thinking of this wrong?

  • by tacticalturtle on 5/3/25, 8:16 PM

    My favorite example is watching the company “C3” evolve over time in it’s NPR ads:

    > Originally the "C" in the company's name was a reference to "carbon" and the "3" was a reference to "measure, mitigate and monetize" because the company's original goal was to help manage corporate carbon footprints.[3] For some time in 2016 the company was named C3IoT and before that was briefly named C3 Energy

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C3.ai

    And yes, now they are C3.ai

    The AI hype cycle will only be complete when they change their name.

  • by perrygeo on 5/3/25, 9:04 PM

    Has about as much value as "X rewritten in Rust". Which is to say, Rust and AI are both impressive technologies (though very different obviously) and marketing people hope to elevate X by mere word association. Unfortunately, this is an effective scam.

    I don't have any problem with labeling yourself an AI business if you're actually objectively working to build AI tech. But if you're vibe coding an app with ChatGPT, you're not building AI-powered technology, you're just consuming it. Might as well talk about "Apple-powered X" if your team is using Macbooks. You don't list the rest of your operating expenses as part of your product, doing so with AI makes you look rather foolish.

  • by rvz on 5/3/25, 7:52 PM

    You are more than correct. Lots of these companies struggling for VC money end up having to rebrand and scream about being 'AI-powered' as the last chance for survival.

    Somehow they are also believe they are 'AI companies' contributing to AI research all of a sudden, but are just an API call away to someone else's AI model.

    Like previously when everyone was an 'internet company' then a 'technology company', then 'robotics company' now an 'AI company' and soon a 'quantum computing company', then they really are confused on what they actually do.

  • by unkoman on 5/3/25, 8:00 PM

    Went to a summit recently where all of the sponsors that had "AI enhanced yada yada" looked all the same. If I didn't know what the company was doing, then there was no differentiator at all.

    Bland.

  • by manchmalscott on 5/3/25, 8:00 PM

    At this point, anything that even so much as _mentions_ AI, as a major selling point or not, is an immediate turn off and a reason for me to never use or stop using something. I don’t care about any arguments towards “well sometimes it can be helpful, as long as it’s done right” I am just So. Unbelievably. Burnt. Out. I don’t want to hear those two letters next to each other again for the rest of my life.

    The complete oversaturation is driving me insane, honestly I preferred when everyone was desperately screaming about web3 and nfts and the metaverse, that was _significantly_ more tolerable than this AI barrage.

  • by steanne on 5/3/25, 9:46 PM

  • by Tadpole9181 on 5/3/25, 11:50 PM

    I think you're just looking at this wrong.

    The specific words don't matter, so the "AI-powered" may as well be "puppy-powered". The real issue is that while it's fairly easy for SaaS to appeal to an engineering need, it's another matter that they have to convince their non-technical bosses to put down thousands of dollars a month on it.

    In this demi-decade, it just happens to be AI-powered that sparkles just the right way to capture the eyes of middle management.

    It used to be "no-code" / "low-code". At some point it was "Java-based". In networking, you'll find a lot of "Edge".

  • by rorylaitila on 5/3/25, 9:31 PM

    So I just judged an international business plan competition. These were high school or college age applicants. 6 out of the 10 companies in my session were "AI powered." 5 years ago they would have been blockchain powered. 10 years ago it was mobile apps. None of the businesses actually required "AI". They were robotics, medicine, call center software, business intelligence, agricultural. At most, they needed some ML. I think people just get excited about what feels up and coming, whether it actually matters to the business or not.

  • by monero-xmr on 5/3/25, 7:56 PM

    Raising money is sales. Better to sell what everyone is buying

  • by crazygringo on 5/3/25, 9:19 PM

    I mean, it's not much different as from "X" to "mobile X", or from "X" to "cloud X".

    Most of them, like most startups overall, will be bad.

    A few lucky ones will come to dominate the new space, executing well on a first-mover advantage.

    Think what Tinder did by reimagining online dating for mobile with swiping. Or what Google Docs did by reimagining the office suite in the cloud.

    There are going to be some HUGE winners in the AI space. But most startups will be losers, like it's always been. And the investors who can tell the difference will be the ones who make money. Again, like it's always been.

    (This isn't like "blockchain-powered X" where it really was a buzzword only. AI is actually delivering meaningful benefits, and it's probably only just starting.)

  • by hnlurker22 on 5/3/25, 8:08 PM

    It was a great excuse for pivoting and layoffs

  • by swyx on 5/3/25, 9:17 PM

    1. eyerolls and judgment can be a trap in that it makes you feel superior without actually having walked their walk and having skin in the game. value of a player >> value of a critic. they're in the arena doing their thing. if you're so good, show it in your own work before passing judgment on others.

    2. it may not just be VC. if it works on "cringe" boomers or Fortune 500 execs to get their attention and money, then they truly do not have to give a flying fck about how much your eyes roll while they laugh their way to the bank. VC is in its ideal form an effect, not a cause.

  • by danenania on 5/3/25, 7:33 PM

    Honestly? You're thinking about it wrong. AI can make most products more useful. That doesn't mean it's going to always be implemented well.

    Think about all the companies that were selling boxed desktop software in the 90s. The ones that survived almost universally found some way to incorporate networking/internet into their product. At the time, there was plenty of skepticism, and you could have said they were chasing a fad. But to early adopters of the internet, the value was plainly obvious.

    Of course, many tried to adapt but executed poorly, so they still didn't make it through the paradigm shift. That doesn't mean ignoring the shift was a better plan.

  • by sejje on 5/3/25, 7:24 PM

    I roll my eyes at all kinds of marketing, while assuming it works.

  • by DoctorOW on 5/3/25, 7:52 PM

    It's an example of the evergreen strategy, find people who are throwing money at a trend and get their money. Reminds me of the VR arc on the show Silicon Valley

  • by metalman on 5/3/25, 8:43 PM

    your thinking is good, but there is a linguistic sublty, in that AI is not bieng used as a noun, but rather as an adjective, or part of a string of adjectives.....extra super power and just to see if you have any eye roll left.... I took one and a half tractors, and built a whole machine combining parts from both, one was a Fordson Super Major, the other an earlier Fordson Major, so I call it the major super major, but I suppose I could get some sort of device involved and it could be the AI power major super major, as there was actualy a "power major" as well. The modern company JCB got it's start doing mad mods to fordsons, and no doubt are getting ready to roll out some sort of AI gimrackery for heavy equipment, I have zero interest in looking, dont want to know, but accept that knowledge is inevitable, hallucinating heavy equipment here we come, maybe we should just go for it and train AI on gaudi,and dali, and give it heavy equipment and monster sized 3d printers

  • by nikanj on 5/3/25, 7:54 PM

    It doesn't matter if we roll our eyes. Adding the AI-powered to your pitch deck multiplies your valuation by infinity, because without AI you get zero investor interest, with AI you might find some funding.

    Pretty much every fund I'm on talking terms with is focusing their portfolio on AI, and their LPs won't put cash into a non-AI play

  • by dragonwriter on 5/3/25, 8:04 PM

    Right now AI is a selling point—not of the product to consumers, but of the company to VCs. Startups are much more about selling the company to investors than about selling product to consumers, and their branding naturally reflects this.

  • by Arubis on 5/3/25, 8:01 PM

    Of course. I’m technical, and not a capitalist desperately seeking alpha. I’m not the target audience.

    Strongly suspect that’s common here.

  • by quintes on 5/3/25, 9:26 PM

    Nope. I’m starting things up and doing the same. Because AI is powering some of what I’m building

  • by shikon7 on 5/3/25, 7:53 PM

    Don't forget about the startup that went from "Twitter" to "X" to "AI-powered X"