There's a reason why every pre-existing startup has been slapping AI all over their products - it's basically the only way to get funding at the moment.

I think this has been a phenomenon since VC became a thing, there's always been trends and fads - CEOs have had to chase them even when it doesn't make sense for the product.

I think this is the most wide-scale one I can personally recall (although I presume dotcom boom was similar), but I remember through the 2010s every database startup having to chase the same ball-game. Everyone was doing NoSQL, then everyone was doing analytics etc. Of course now all those companies have AI-native, vector-embedding, RAG, MPCs slapped all over their products.

Anecdata but from my vantage this has been true for a decade, I imagine it is only more true today, but investors were nudging to add AI to products the entire time I’ve been in tech, and failure to do that was always flagged as a risk for funding rounds. Need to show “AI/ML in the pipeline” by the next funding round or x/y/z is out…

I'm cancelling my blockchain toaster startup, anyone up for investing in my AI toaster (powered by Nvidia)?