From the AI breakthroughs of the last few months, a wave of new startup opportunities have been unlocked. Here are some of the ideas we think will be especially interesting to build now: ycombinator.com/rfs
A Secure AI App Store @garrytan There is a small window today for a startup to create an AI App Store that provides computer use APIs and local LLaMA versioning with secure privacy controls, discovery, and payments. We hope you might build it.
Compliance and Audit @t_blom 4 million people in the US & Europe work in compliance & audit. LLMs will automate the testing that these folks currently do by hand: spotting anomalies in data, identifying incomplete records, or highlighting contradictory policies.
DocuSign 2.0 @mwseibel There is an opportunity with AI to finally make the process of filling out and signing documents delightful.
Browser/Computer Automation @snowmaker AI agents can now browse the web and use desktop applications. It means that every website and every app now effectively has an API, and any workflow that people can do on a computer can be automated.
AI Personal Staff for Everyone @dflieb The world’s richest people employ large staffs of humans, like tax accountants, lawyers, money managers, personal trainers, and even private doctors. AI will soon be good enough to do all these jobs for everyone.
Devtools for AI Agents @dessaigne AI agents are the next wave: autonomous tools that reason, decide, and amplify human productivity. We’re funding startups building devtools for agents, whether you’re creating agent builders or building blocks to perform complex tasks.
The Future of Software Engineering @koomen AI will bring the cost of building software down to zero, but this means we’ll need MORE human developers, not fewer. We’d like to fund startups building tools for this future.
AI Coding Agent for Hardware Optimized Code @sdianahu AI hardware is still constrained by software. However, with reasoning models like Deepseek R1 or OpenAI o1 and o3, AI could generate hardware-optimized code that rivals—or surpasses—human CUDA code.
B2A: Business-to-Agent @daltonc Not b2b, not b2c, but b2a: Business-to-agent. We are looking for startups that are building products where AI agents are the intended customer. Make something agents want.
Vertical AI Agents @snowmaker At a recent event, a founder asked Sam Altman "If you were 24 and starting a startup today, what would you build?" His answer: A vertical AI agent.
Startup Founders with Systems Programming Expertise @daltonc As evidenced by DeepSeek, being able to optimize the entire stack is a competitive advantage. This expertise can be an advantage in all sorts of startup ideas, ie, @bunjavascript from YC S19.
@ycombinator @snowmaker interesting. we built the world’s first ai agent for teachers @gradeassistai. sounds exactly like what you’re describing @snowmaker
@ycombinator @snowmaker Bang On. At Bukprotocol.ai, our Travel AI agents will understand preferences, search and negotiate for travel deals, create itineraries and automate payments for the services. We are building TravelAIAgents who will be loyal to travelers, not service providers
@ycombinator @snowmaker Agree. I own a large marketing agency and looking to build an AI agent. Currently in search of a technical co-founder
@ycombinator @snowmaker AI Functions (aifunction.com) by @WecoAI makes building any agent easy! Vertical or otherwise.
@ycombinator @snowmaker @AshaToken and @ObservatoryProj working on some killer Vertical Emergent Intelligence Agents I used to call basic LLMs google 2.0. These VEIAs are my own brain and the akashic records as a back up quantum state drives with unmatched contextual adaptability.
@ycombinator @snowmaker Ty for the advice! Starting one atm
@ycombinator @snowmaker how about WebAgent that automates a task
@ycombinator @snowmaker joinaston.com The NEXT-GEN CRM Powering the supply chain 👀
@ycombinator @snowmaker @snowmaker @garrytan What’s your take on sales vertical AI agents? AI BDRs