Brainstorming $10M AI Business Ideas w/ the Airtable Founder

Key Concepts:

• AI Avatars for Live Shopping
• AI-Personalized News Aggregation
• AI Financial Advisors
• AI-Powered Automation in Traditional Businesses
• AI Productivity Tools (Email, IDEs)
• AI-Native Consumer Social Apps
• Agentic Workflows
• Large Language Models (LLMs)
• API Integration
• TAM (Total Addressable Market)

1. Live Shopping with AI Avatars:

• Main Idea: Leverage AI avatars to enhance the live shopping experience, drawing inspiration from the popularity of live shopping in Asia (e.g., on platforms like TikTok and Teimu) and the US (e.g., WhatNot).
• Details: Live shopping involves influencers promoting products in real-time, creating an interactive experience. AI avatars can personalize this experience, offering one-on-one interactions with shoppers.
• Example: A Kim Kardashian avatar interacting with customers about skincare products.
• HeyGen: Howie is an investor in HeyGen, an avatar product that allows users to create or use pre-made avatars based on licensed human actors.
• Air Table's Use: Air Table uses its own web agents to research target customers and generate customized email pitches. They are experimenting with generating avatar videos using HeyGen from data in Air Table rows.
• Process: Air Table uses a scripting layer to define code that interacts with the HeyGen API to generate personalized videos.

2. AI-Personalized News Aggregation:

• Main Idea: Create an AI-powered news aggregator that understands user interests and provides interactive news experiences, going beyond simple summarization.
• Problem: Current news consumption often involves manually summarizing articles using tools like Chat GPT or Claude.
• Solution: An AI agent that curates news based on user preferences and allows for interactive conversations about the news.
• Analogy: An AI version of a knowledgeable friend who can provide in-depth information on any topic.
• Business Opportunity: Building a platform where creators can create their own branded newsletters powered by AI.
• Personalization: AI can inject personality into news delivery, such as adopting the style of a TMZ gossip reporter.

3. AI Financial Advisors:

• Main Idea: Use AI avatars to provide personalized financial advice, making strategic wealth management accessible to a wider audience.
• Problem: Most people lack access to high-quality financial advice and personalized financial plans.
• Solution: An AI avatar that can analyze a user's financial situation, provide tailored advice, and offer ongoing support.
• Technology: Requires smart reasoning capabilities of advanced models like GPT-4.
• Kuber Example: Using Kuber to aggregate financial data and Chat GPT to analyze it based on different investment theories.
• Trust Factor: Acknowledges the importance of human trust in financial advice but suggests that younger generations may be more willing to trust AI.

4. AI-Powered Automation in Traditional Businesses:

• Main Idea: Apply AI to automate processes in traditional businesses, increasing efficiency and margins.
• Example: A German company buying property management firms and using AI to automate tasks, increasing margins without firing employees.
• Target Areas: Call centers, BPOs, and any labor-intensive business processes.
• BPO Automation: Automating tasks such as analyst work, research, and support center operations.
• Call Centers: Automating call center operations, although current AI voice technology is not yet fully mature.
• Sesame AI: Mentions Sesame AI as a research team working on real-time voice interactions.

5. AI Productivity Tools:

• Main Idea: Integrate AI into existing productivity workflows to augment user capabilities.
• Cursor: An IDE that integrates AI for agentic coding experiences.
• Email: Develop an email client that uses AI to pre-read emails, prioritize important messages, and conduct research to aid in email responses.
• Agentic Workflows: AI automatically performing tasks such as pre-reading emails and researching senders.
• Target Users: Power users who are willing to pay a premium for increased efficiency.

6. Building an AI-Powered Email Client:

• Challenges: Building on top of existing email platforms like Gmail can be difficult due to potential restrictions and updates.
• Superhuman: An example of a company that built a new email client from scratch but struggled to articulate a clear 10x improvement over existing solutions.
• AI Advantage: AI can enable the creation of radically different and better email experiences.
• Chiefso: Mentions a former Air Table employee working on an AI-powered email client.
• Target Audience: Focus on a top 1% power user audience willing to pay a premium for significant time savings and improved efficiency.

7. TAM and Business Strategy:

• Cursor Example: Discusses the TAM for AI-augmented coding, suggesting that even a small niche can result in a multi-billion dollar business.
• Two Approaches:
  • Broad: Target a large market with tens of millions of potential users and significant value.
  • Deep and Narrow: Focus on a specific vertical and extract more revenue from each user.
• Air Table's Strategy: Targeting the broad market of business app development, aiming to replace legacy software with AI-powered solutions.

8. Exotic AI Ideas:

• AI-Native Social Apps: Explore new consumer social apps that are native to AI, such as social networks with AI avatars as participants.
• Consumer Behavior: Acknowledge that consumer behaviors in an AI-native era are unknown and will likely be surprising.
• Artist vs. Technologist: Emphasize the need for artists and creatives to explore the possibilities of AI-powered experiences.
• Hyper-Engaging Experiences: AI could create consumer experiences that are even more addictive than current social media.
• Grock Example: Mentions Grock's unhinged mode as an example of pushing the boundaries of AI censorship and safety features.

9. Conclusion:

The conversation explores various business opportunities leveraging AI, ranging from enhancing existing experiences like live shopping and news consumption to creating entirely new paradigms in areas like financial advice and social networking. The key takeaways are the importance of understanding user needs, integrating AI into existing workflows, and exploring the uncharted territory of AI-native consumer experiences. The discussion also highlights the potential for AI to automate tasks, increase efficiency, and create new business models across various industries.