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 presented their startups in a Demo Day on Tuesday.
These companies are working on products across industries such as law, transportation, and healthcare.
I did not, admittedly, listen to every single product pitch, given the sheer size of the cohort and this year’s Demo Day format available to media: YC posted the pitch videos, one by one, around 20 minutes after their presentations (rather than a livestream, or an in-person session invite).
Instead, I read about all 190 of the startups presenting and spent the day watching pitches from those I found intriguing, then narrowed it down to the 16 that stood out as the most interesting startups of this overflowing YC class.
ARC Prize Foundation
What it does: Creates benchmarks to help measure progress toward AGI.
Why it’s interesting: A nonprofit in YC! But then again, when OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are already using 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 historical record for tracking how close we are from AI machines that have a general intelligence.
Asimov
What it does: Collects human movement data to train humanoids
Why it’s interesting: People from around the world submit videos of themselves performing movements and tasks to this company so it can then turn them into datasets that can help train robots. It’s part of the movement trying to make humanoids a thing, finding uses for them beyond the supply chain and entertainment. I’m bullish on humanoid technology, even though our “Rosey the Robot” era still might be eons away. Using data to teach humanoids the flow and — dare I say, elegance — of human movement could help them be less, well, robotic as they perform tasks.
Avoice
What it does: Helps automate the tedious non-design work for architecture firms
Why it’s interesting: It’s not every day you hear about new technology targeting the architectural industry. The founders themselves noted that this market is underserved (though rich in potential). This tool uses AI to help automate tasks that creative types like architects may find tedious like reviewing specifications, drawings, contracts, and proposals.
Button Computer
What it does: A wearable AI
Why it’s interesting: Everyone is trying to make wearable AI a thing as the world awaits OpenAI’s product from its acquisition of Johnny Ive’s company. Two former Applers (can I call them that?) have joined together to launch Button, essentially a tiny computer, the founders explained, that’s built for AI. Button connects to apps like email, Slack, and Salesforce and operates them via voice command to perform certain tasks. The next must-have hardware is likely to be some form of AI wearable, so it’s interesting to see what’s emerging.
CodeWisp
What it does: Lets anyone build games using AI
Why it’s interesting: The founders say all you have to do is tell an AI how to make a game, and it will make the game. That’s fun, creative, exciting! I tried to build games as a child and always found it hard and tedious, but the excitement of designing one never went away. While vibe coding has become the rage for building apps, tools like this make imaginative execution much easier. Maybe this will be the next generation of vibe building.
Crosslayer Labs
What it does: Helps detect website spoofs
Why it’s interesting: The rise of agentic tools means that websites are becoming easier to spoof with the bad guys are not shying away from using this tech to scam people. Crosslayer Labs helps its customers detect and monitor their online setups so they can stay protected against this shade of emerging internet threats.
Doomersion
What it does: Teaches you languages as you doomscroll
Why it’s interesting: We spend way too much time doomscrolling, just filling our brains with slop that ends up either irritating us or atrophying our brains. This startup is an app that shows users short videos, like how they would see and scroll through them on a TikTok feed, in the language they are trying to learn. If there should be some meaning to all the content we stuff into our heads all day, what a brilliant way to find that. It combines what consumers won’t stop doing (spending hours on their phone swiping through content) with something as cool as language learning. Très intéressant.
Lexius
What it does: Embeds advanced AI into security systems
Why it’s interesting: This uses AI to enhance existing security camera systems, enabling footage to detect and report instances of theft or falls, replacing a fragmented, mainly manual process. The startup says it targets businesses that have cameras without AI intelligence, where a camera might catch an incident, but the company is delayed in taking any action.
Librar Labs
What it does: An AI-powered library management system tool
Why it’s interesting: This is AI touching one of those industries that the tech industry often overlooks — libraries. This startup has created an AI-powered library management system to specifically help, as of right now, schools with inventory and cataloguing. As the founder said in his pitch, there isn’t much competition when it comes to automating or innovating the tools already used in this space, making any 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 tech 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 everything they can 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 identify what is actually a tiny drone in the sky. Given the current state of geopolitics, new technology is needed — and emerging — so that every country can stay ahead of the game and its enemies.
MouseCat
What it does: Uses AI to investigate fraud
Why it’s interesting: AI is a great tool for work, and that holds true for those whose work is fraud and scamming. This company pulls a company’s data from large cloud storage like Databricks or Snowflake, analyzes consumer data and activity for anything suspicious, and gives recommendations on how to take action. AI-native tools like this are important when it comes to keeping up with the bad AI that is also capable of unleashing the bad that AI is.
Opalite Health
What it does: Uses AI to help healthcare providers talk to non-English speakers
Why it’s interesting: There is much left up to interpretation when two people cannot understand each other. In the medical world, it could be life or death. This AI medical translator helps break the language barrier, enabling healthcare providers to understand patients who speak a different language. In a globalized world (and in a country as diverse as America), it’s important for people to be able to access the healthcare they need, regardless of language. Of course, this idea isn’t completely original, as a number of other startups and healthtech providers offer a similar service.
Sequence Markets
What it does: Let’s people trade across various markets, like crypto and prediction, on one system.
Why it’s interesting: As someone who likes everything in one place, I understand wanting a less fragmented process when executing trades in these markets. It’s the same reason I still like going to big-box retailers to buy brands (I like to see all my options at once).
ShoFo
What it does: A video library of basically everything
Why it’s interesting: This startup is billing itself as the “world’s video library,” which is pretty cool if you ask me. I grew up on YouTube and Tumblr and remember how delicate search was back then, when you were looking for something specific. Though this is more of a custom video index to help AI Labs find diverse datasets efficiently, I love any tool that makes searching and organizing easier.
Sonarly
What it does: Helps software fix its own production issues
Why it’s interesting: This startup is making tech that just sounds very cool. It connects to other monitoring systems, promises to reduce alert noise (a distraction from finding the alerts that actually matter), automatically identifies the root causes of problems, and then finds ways to either fix them or suggest further actions for the engineers. While there are a growing number of AI code review startups (and that feature is also being offered by the model makers), there should be room for independent ones once the code hits production systems. This is yet another aspect of the workflow that founders are automating.
Terranox AI
What it does: Uses AI to find uranium deposits in North America
Why it’s interesting: Uranium will be needed to power the next generation of nuclear energy, the founders of this company reminded us. (Nuclear power is generally considered safe these days, though the uranium itself is, obviously, toxic — and the founder didn’t include in the pitch how it could be safely excavated.) These founders believe that nuclear will be needed to help power all of the new data centers being built. Earth is going to need a lot of energy, from many sources, to ensure its human inhabitants can keep up with the ambitions of the AI revolution.
