How startups differentiate when all the pieces appears like AI

In 2025, AI startups raised practically half of all world enterprise capital, a record-breaking $150 billion in funding. OpenAI alone pulled in $40 billion, Anthropic secured $13 billion, and xAI raised $10 billion. Most startups created final 12 months have been constructing one thing with AI. Which signifies that having AI not differentiates you.

In 2026, saying your startup “makes use of AI” will sound identical to claiming to make use of databases or cloud computing. Everybody does this. And that makes me hopeful. We’ve lastly erased the benefit of shouting “AI, AI, AI” and compelled founders to compete on one thing extra substantial.

We’ve watched activity managers and spreadsheet instruments like Airtable and Taskade utterly rebrand themselves round AI. Customers don’t care. What clients truly care about is functionality: what can they obtain with this AI? Not whether or not AI exists someplace within the stack.

Claude Cowork is an ideal instance of this. In a form of AI-building-AI second, Anthropic’s crew constructed Cowork in below two weeks utilizing Claude Code to put in writing the code. OpenAI would have talked about AGI milestones. As a substitute, Anthropic targeted on what customers can truly do with it, akin to organising recordsdata, compiling analysis, or drafting shows from scattered notes. The main target is on outcomes, not the underlying know-how.

The moat shouldn’t be the mannequin

There’s a curious paradox. ChatGPT has practically a billion weekly customers. A lot of my buddies, together with non-developers, are paying for Claude Professional and Max subscriptions and constructing apps with it. But many others are very vocal about hoping the AI bubble will burst and get aggravated when one other product advertises “AI chat”. They don’t see a lot worth in it. I perceive why, as a result of most AI implementations are unexciting and generic. Simply take a look at Microsoft Copilot. I’m not positive they themselves perceive what the purpose of it’s.

Founders have to return to fundamentals. Clearly talk the issues you’re fixing for customers. Whether or not it’s constructing funding decks or automating tax credit score functions, what issues is the aptitude, not the truth that AI is concerned. Deal with this query: why can’t another person, armed with the identical OpenAI API, do what you do?

The one sturdy benefits now aren’t that you simply use AI, however how you employ it to create outcomes, prices, or experiences that rivals can not simply copy. So reply the query each investor and buyer is asking anyway: “Why ought to I consider you resolve this downside higher than anybody else proper now?”

Perhaps you’re constructing for a extremely particular area like rental property markets, tax credit for startups, or area of interest regulatory compliance. Perhaps you could have created a whole bunch of verified, superior workflows and integrations with confirmed outcomes, akin to “Our predictive gross sales platform cuts forecast error to below 10% in 90 days.” Or perhaps you’re so assured in your worth that you’ve rebuilt your corporation mannequin round it: “We solely cost 10% of the financial savings our platform creates.”

For this reason lazy LLM wrappers are virtually useless. They don’t have any moat. In the meantime, Manus constructed a defensible enterprise round deep analysis, one thing you may technically get from any AI chatbot. Their differentiator is the superior high quality of their analysis and presentation, which is a part of the rationale Meta spent $2 billion to amass it.

Anybody has entry to the identical fashions. Anybody can use these fashions to vibe-code a complete product over a weekend. For this reason actual defensibility now lies within the area experience, workflows, and proprietary information you could have constructed and gathered. Manus is once more a robust instance. The corporate just lately partnered with Similarweb to combine its information into the platform. You should utilize Claude Code to construct another app, however it is not going to provide help to entry that information. Their announcement focuses particularly on giving the Manus AI agent entry to Similarweb information on internet visitors and engagement, permitting clients to place the agent to work on data-driven digital advertising and marketing evaluation and optimisation.

Discover an enemy, present the worth

Founders have to grasp how they speak about their firm. The most effective positioning has at all times been about discovering an enemy. It may be an business dinosaur that no one really loves, like Salesforce, or it may be messy spreadsheets that no one desires to cope with. Concrete enemies are much more persuasive than summary issues. That is the place specializing in a particular vertical will help tremendously. Constructing “AI for regulation corporations” could also be slim, however it clearly defines what you do, in contrast to “AI for professionals”.

Don’t put AI in your organization identify. It dates you immediately and can look odd in a 12 months or two when AI is solely assumed. Every part comes right down to the product and its capabilities, so lead with the job, not the know-how. “We assist gross sales groups forecast income”, explains actual worth, whereas statements like “We’re an AI-powered gross sales intelligence platform” concentrate on know-how that’s not a differentiator. Against this, “Our platform helps builders ship production-ready apps thrice quicker” is clearly compelling.