AI startups are really competing with old workflows, not just other startups
srimisra · x · 2026-07-28
AI startups are not just competing with each other, but with entrenched workflows inside customer organizations:
- old tracker sheets teams have used for years
- the five tabs people need open to finish one task
- undocumented copy-and-paste processes
- the employee who “just does it” informally
- ignorance, fear of change, and plain laziness
The point is that adoption friction, not model capability alone, is often the real battlefield.
Related event: AI Startups' Real Competitor Is Legacy Workflows(2 posts)→
More from Companies & People
- Tsinghua professor's ApexIntelligence raises $50M to build self-evolving foundation models — DeryaTR_ · 2026-10-16
- FlashAttention creator Tri Dao joins Radical Numerics as scientific advisor — exnx · 2026-10-16
- OpenAI DevDay Community Hackathon heads to Berlin with developer, founder and GTM tracks — paw_lean · 2026-10-16
- Data scientist career path is shifting: ML skills no longer enough, AI engineering is the new bar — mdancho84 · 2026-10-16
- Dev argues big AI labs don't get enterprise ROI: token spend isn't performance — verrsane · 2026-10-16
- TMLR suspends 159 authors, lifts desk rejections to 53% amid 300% submission surge — thegautamkamath · 2026-10-16