What is Real Problem AI?

Real Problem AI is a curated directory of 100 real problems worth building an AI startup around. Each problem is scored honestly on severity, AI feasibility, market signal, and competition gap. We're for builders looking for what to build, not for ethics debates about AI.

What is the difference between Real Problem AI and AI ethics or AI risks indexes?

Real Problem AI catalogues problems AI can solve — productive, commercial opportunities for builders. AI ethics indexes catalogue problems with AI itself (bias, environmental cost, copyright, consciousness). Different intent, different audience: founders and indie hackers vs researchers and policy folks.

What should I build with AI in 2026?

Look for problems with high severity (it costs people hours, sleep, or revenue every week), high AI feasibility (LLMs, vision or voice are great at this today), strong market signal (Reddit threads + willingness to pay), and a clear competition gap (incumbents miss the same obvious thing). Real Problem AI scores 100 such problems for you on those four axes.

Where do Real Problem AI's startup ideas come from?

From three sources, scanned each cycle: 1) Reddit threads where people describe a real friction in their own words, 2) podcasts and talks of founders young builders trust (Nikhil Kamath, Aman Gupta, Ankur Warikoo, Raj Shamani, Andrej Karpathy, Greg Isenberg), and 3) a continuous 1,000+ source scan covering forums, app store reviews, regulator filings, and field interviews.

Is Real Problem AI free?

Yes. Browsing every problem, opening every score breakdown, raising your hand on a co-founder match, and the founder vault are all free. There is no paywall.

How is each problem scored?

Four axes, each 1-10, weighted: Problem Severity (30%), AI Feasibility (25%), Market Signal (25%), Competition Gap (20%). Weighted average is the Opportunity Score on each card. Only problems clearing 7.0+ make the live list.

Why am I writing 142 personalized report-card comments at midnight?

Teachers write personalized progress comments for every student during nights and weekends.

Category: EdTech · Trend: LLM · Opportunity score: 8.3 / 10

What is the “Why am I writing 142 personalized report-card comments at midnight?” problem in 2026?

Teachers write personalized progress comments for every student during nights and weekends.

Who has this problem?

K-12 teachers in the US, UK, Canada, Australia.

Recorded source context

Dataset source note: I have 142 students. The school wants 'personalized' comments. I'm writing them at midnight.

This note may summarize the referenced material rather than quote it verbatim. Source label: r/teachers "report card week is killing me" megathreads..

Existing players in this space

MagicSchool (teacher AI assistant)
Brisk Teaching (Chrome extension for grading)
Eduaide (lesson + comment generator)

What existing players are missing

None ingest the student's actual gradebook plus voice samples of the teacher's prior comments to produce ready-to-send, district-policy-compliant remarks at scale.

How Real Problem AI scores this opportunity

Aggregate score: 8.3 / 10. Four-axis rubric:

Problem severity: 8 / 10
AI feasibility today: 9 / 10
Market signal: 9 / 10
Competition gap: 7 / 10

How to build a solution: stack hints

Gradebook integrations (PowerSchool, Infinite Campus, Synergy)
Style-cloned generation from teacher's past comments
District-policy filter (banned phrases, required elements)
Bulk redline review UI

Why this problem is archived

Swapped out in AI-tool-builder content refresh (2026-08-26): generic vertical problem replaced by a more current, builder-relevant one.