AI was once again the buzzword for this latest batch of YC Demo Day companies. Nearly 190 companies participated in Y Combinator’s Winter ’26 cohort and pitched their startups at a Demo Day on Tuesday.
These companies work on products across industries such as law, transportation, and healthcare.
Admittedly, I didn’t hear every product pitch given the sheer size of the cohort and this year’s Demo Day format available to the media. YC released the videos from the presentation, one by one, about 20 minutes after the founders’ presentation (rather than a live stream or an in-person session invite).
Instead, I read about all 190 startups that pitched and spent the day watching pitches from the ones I found interesting, then narrowed it down to the 16 that stood out as the most interesting startups in this overflowing YC category.
ARC Prize Foundation
What it does: Creates benchmarks to help measure progress toward AGI.
Why it’s interesting: A non-profit organization at YC! But then again, when OpenAI, Anthropic and Google already use some form of the organization’s benchmarks, it makes sense why it would be included. This foundation aims to inspire more open source AGI research by hosting competitions and awarding research grants. One reason for this AI revolution is to reach AGI (which Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says has already arrived), and it will be a matter of record to track how close we are to AI machines having general intelligence.
Asimov
What it does: Collects human motion data to train humanoids
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Why it’s interesting: People from all over the world submit videos of themselves performing movements and tasks to this company, which then turns them into datasets that can help train robots. It’s part of the movement that’s trying to humanize things, finding uses for them beyond supply chain and entertainment. I’m positive about humanoid technology, even though our “Rosey the Robot” era may still be centuries away. Using data to teach humanoids the flow and — dare I say, elegance — of human movement could help them be less robotic as they perform tasks.
Avoice
What it does: It helps automate tedious non-design work for architecture firms
Why it’s interesting: It’s not every day you hear about new technology aimed at the architecture industry. The founders themselves noted that this market is underserved (though rich in potential). This tool uses artificial intelligence to help automate tasks that creative types like architects may find tedious, such as reviewing specifications, plans, contracts and proposals.
Calculator button
What it does: A wearable AI
Why it’s interesting: Everyone is trying to do the wearable AI thing as people are waiting for OpenAI’s product from the acquisition of Johnny Ive’s company. Two ex-Applers (can I call them that?) teamed up to launch Button, essentially a tiny computer, the founders explained, built for artificial intelligence. The button connects to apps like email, Slack, and Salesforce and manipulates them via voice commands to perform specific tasks. The next necessary hardware is likely to be some form of wearable AI, so it will be interesting to see what emerges.
CodeWisp
What it does: It allows anyone to create games using AI
Why it’s interesting: The founders say that all you have to do is tell an AI how to make a game, and it will make the game. This is fun, creative, exciting! I tried making toys as a kid and always found it difficult and tiring, but the excitement of designing never left. While vibe coding has become all the rage for app building, tools like this make imaginative execution much easier. Maybe this is the next generation of vibe building.
Crosslayer Labs
What it does: Helps detect fake websites
Why it’s interesting: The rise of proxy tools means that websites are becoming easier to fool with bad guys not shying away from using this technology to scam people. Crosslayer Labs helps its customers identify and monitor their online settings so they can stay protected from this shadow of emerging Internet threats.
Destruction
What it does: It teaches you languages as you scroll
Why it’s interesting: We spend way too much time doomscrolling, just filling our brains with crap that ends up either irritating us or atrophying our brains. This startup is an app that shows users short videos, like how they would watch and scroll through them in a TikTok feed, in the language they’re trying to learn. If there had to be some meaning to all the content we throw at our heads all day, what a great way to find it. It combines what consumers won’t stop doing (spending hours on their phone scrolling through content) with something as cool as learning foreign languages. Very interesting.
Words
What it does: Integrates advanced AI into security systems
Why it’s interesting: This uses artificial intelligence to enhance existing security camera systems, allowing the hardware to detect and report theft or falls, replacing a fragmented, mostly manual process. The startup says it is targeting businesses that have cameras without AI intelligence, where a camera can record an incident but the company is slow to take any action.
Librar Labs
What it does: An artificial intelligence library management system tool
Why it’s interesting: This is artificial intelligence touching on one of those industries that the tech industry often overlooks – libraries. This startup has created an AI-powered library management system to specifically help schools with inventory and cataloging as of now. As the founder said in his pitch, there isn’t much competition when it comes to automating or innovating the tools already in use in this space, making every new idea a contender for “the next big thing.”
Milliray
What it does: Radar system to help track small drones
Why it’s interesting: Defense technology is one of the hottest categories in tech right now. As the founder of this company said, right now, people are in the fields doing their best to track tiny drones, but the human eye can miss so much or mistake a tiny drone for a bird and vice versa. This startup uses sensors to recognize what is actually a tiny drone in the sky. Given the current geopolitical situation, new — and emerging — technology is required for each country to stay ahead of the game and its enemies.
MouseCat
What it does: It uses AI to investigate fraud
Why it’s interesting: AI is a great tool to work with and that goes for those whose work is fraud and scamming. This company pulls a company’s data from a large cloud storage such as Databricks or Snowflake, analyzes the data and consumer activity for anything suspicious, and provides recommendations on how to take action. Native tools like this are important when it comes to keeping up with evil AI that is also capable of unleashing the evil that is AI.
Opalite Health
What it does: Uses artificial intelligence to help healthcare providers talk to non-English speakers
Why it’s interesting: A lot is left to interpretation when two people cannot understand each other. In the medical world, it can be life or death. This AI medical translator helps break the language barrier, allowing healthcare providers to understand patients who speak a different language. In a globalized world (and in a country as diverse as America), it is important for people to have access to the health care they need, regardless of language. Of course, this idea is not entirely original, as a number of other startups and healthtech providers offer a similar service.
Sequence Markets
What it does: Let’s trade people in different markets like crypto and prediction in one system.
Why it’s interesting: As someone who likes everything in one place, I understand wanting a less fragmented process when trading these markets. It’s the same reason I still love going to big box retailers to buy brands (I love seeing all my options at once).
ShoFo
What it does: A video library with everything
Why it’s interesting: This startup bills itself as the “world’s video library,” which is pretty cool if you ask me. I grew up on YouTube and Tumblr and I remember how thin the search was back then when you were looking for something specific. While this is more of a custom video index to help AI Labs find different datasets efficiently, I like any tool that makes it easier to search and organize.
Sonarly
What it does: It helps the software to fix its own production problems
Why it’s interesting: This startup creates technology that sounds pretty cool. It connects to other monitoring systems, promises to reduce alarm noise (a distraction from finding the alerts that really matter), automatically identifies the root causes of problems, and then finds ways to either fix them or suggest further actions to engineers. While there are a growing number of AI code review startups (and this capability is also offered by model makers), there should be room for independents once the code reaches production systems. This is yet another aspect of the workflow that founders automate.
Terranox AI
What it does: It uses artificial intelligence to find uranium deposits in North America
Why it’s interesting: Uranium will be needed to power the next generation of nuclear power, the founders of this company reminded us. (Nuclear power it’s generally considered safe these days(although uranium itself is, apparently, toxic — and the founder didn’t include in the pitch how it could be mined safely.) These founders believe that nuclear will be needed to help power all the new data centers being built. Earth will need a lot of energy, from many sources, to ensure that its people can keep up with the ambitions of the AI revolution.
