AI graveyard tracks products and startups that didn't make it
Relay, Character.ai, Sora and the Humane AI Pin are among the failures listed.
Money#04
42%
of AI initiatives abandoned by corporate parents
Image: TechCrunch
42%of AI initiatives abandoned by corporate parents
The short version
- Relay, an AI workflow automation tool built as an alternative to Zapier, shut down entirely in August.
- Character.ai filed for bankruptcy in early October, citing legal, regulatory, and operational headwinds.
- According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, about 42% of AI initiatives are ultimately abandoned by their corporate parents.
- OpenAI rolled back its ChatGPT redesign soon after the July 9 update drew criticism from users.
Why it matters
The list shows how larger platforms can absorb features that once made stand-alone AI products worth using. The article names insufficient funding, technical challenges, competition, difficulty scaling, and weak user demand as common reasons for failure. For developers, it is a record of which AI bets have not held up so far.
“Think of it less as a scorecard of flops than as a record of what these attempts can (hopefully) teach the rest of the industry.”