Video · ~15 min

How To Get AI Startup Ideas

Y Combinator Free Beginner

This is YC's direct answer to your question, walking through how partners spot ideas that only became buildable once models got good. It pushes you toward specific painful jobs inside an industry rather than a general assistant, and warns against the ideas everyone can see. Watch it to calibrate what a strong AI-enabled idea looks like versus a demo.

  • Look for jobs that were too expensive to automate before models
  • Talk to real operators before you fall in love with a demo
  • Avoid crowded obvious ideas everyone is already chasing
Open on ycombinator.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. How do I spot an idea that AI just made possible that was not viable two years ago?

Read with it

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  3. 200+ candid conversations with Indian founders and investors on how they actually found their idea, spotted a trend, and... Apple Podcasts Podcast · podcast series (45-90 min episodes) The Neon Show (formerly 100x Entrepreneur) Siddhartha Ahluwalia
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  5. Elad Gil is one of the most trusted operators-turned-investors on this exact question, and this piece cuts through the wrapper... Elad Gil (Elad Blog) Essay · ~12 min read Defensibility & Competition Elad Gil
  6. A living list of problem areas YC actively wants founders to tackle, useful as raw material and as a way to spot where the... Y Combinator Tool · Browse Requests for Startups Y Combinator
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