The AI graveyard: a running list of projects and startups that didn’t make it
TechCrunch explores the growing trend of AI startups and corporate projects failing due to market saturation and competition from major platforms. The article highlights notable shutdowns like Relay and Character.ai, while noting that even industry giants like OpenAI face challenges in product strategy.
Why it matters
It provides a realistic perspective on the AI bubble, illustrating that technical innovation alone is insufficient for long-term commercial viability in a crowded market.
Relay, an AI-powered workflow automation tool built as an alternative to Zapier, shut down entirely in August. The product let users automate email and task workflows using AI agents, but as OpenAI, Google, and other larger platforms built similar automation directly into their own tools, five-year-old Relay struggled to hold on to a reason to exist as a stand-alone product.
More recently, chatbot platform Character.ai filed for bankruptcy just five years after launching.
Aside from Character.ai and Relay, plenty of AI bets never even survive inside the companies that build them. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence , about 42% of AI initiatives are ultimately abandoned by their corporate parents. The reasons vary: insufficient funding, technical challenges, competition, difficulty scaling, or just weak user demand.
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