Data
I analyzed 5,800 YC startup one-liners.
The YC companies API is public. No auth, no Cloudflare. I pulled all 5,833 companies and ran the numbers on what founders actually write in their one-liners.
51%
of 2025 companies mention AI
1 in 11
call themselves a platform
650
start their one-liner with “AI”
255
use the “The X for Y” formula
The AI takeover, year by year
% of one-liners mentioning AI, ML, LLM, or generative
Most used words
Stop words removed. Every 11th company is a “platform.”
The "The X for Y" formula
255 companies (4.5%) use this exact structure.
The cloud agent operating system for knowledge work
The IDE for investors
The validation infrastructure for AI agents
the context layer for fast moving sales teams
The Hollywood agent for startup talent
The Intelligence Layer for Manufacturing.
The AI native law firm for growth stage companies
The Interface Design Canvas for AI agents
The AI-native observability platform for fast-moving engineering teams
The AIOps Agent for ML Teams
The AI-native platform for next-generation protein characterization.
The operations stack for biologic infusion clinics
The agentic coding app for complex tasks.
The AI-Native CRM that works for you
The AI workforce for People and Finance teams
The social brain for robots.
The Marketplace for Complex Hobbies
The infra layer for AI integrations.
The first Agentic platform for Oncology
The AI Reservation Team for Hotel Groups
The data infrastructure for real estate
The risk management software for enterprises adopting AI
The OS for data quality across any stack
The voice interface that works proactively for you
The AI copilot for in-person conversations.
The AI platform for private markets investors
The Global Dollar App for Brazil
The Cross-Border Neobank for the Middle East
The full-stack platform for agentic development
The coding agent built for the web
Who are they building for?
Most common targets after the word "for". AI agents beat humans.
Guess the year
A one-liner. Four years. Can you tell 2015 from 2023?
DAIVIN!
1/136
0/0
“Tankless Dive Gear - Breath Autonomy at Sea, Land & Space”
Guess the company
One-liner, four company names. Which one wrote it?
2012
1/136
0/0
“The 401(k) that helps you grow”
Raw data
Full dataset and summary stats, free to use.
Data pulled from the public YC API using webclaw. 5,833 companies, 5,672 with a one-liner. Last updated April 2026.