What is Real Problem AI?

Real Problem AI is a curated directory of 200+ 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 200+ 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 do my prompts live in 22 places and I can't tell which version broke prod?

Prompts live in Python strings, Notion docs, Cursor files, PromptLayer, and Bob's head. When the agent breaks at 2 AM, nobody knows which prompt is live.

Category: AI / Agents · Trend: LLM · Opportunity score: 7.7 / 10

What is the “Why do my prompts live in 22 places and I can't tell which version broke prod?” problem in 2026?

Prompts live in Python strings, Notion docs, Cursor files, PromptLayer, and Bob's head. When the agent breaks at 2 AM, nobody knows which prompt is live.

Who has this problem?

Teams of 2-15 shipping LLM features (support, sales, internal tools).

Evidence this problem is real

“Prod regressed yesterday because someone edited the prompt directly in PromptLayer. No PR, no test, no rollback. We spent 6 hours diffing screenshots.”

Sourced from Hacker News "prompt versioning is the new database migrations" thread (May 2026), PromptLayer and Humanloop changelog discussions.

Existing players in this space

PromptLayer — Catalog without strong git semantics
Humanloop — Closer, enterprise-priced
LangSmith — Tracing-first, weak prompt diff UX

What existing players are missing

Git-native prompt management: every prompt is a file, branched, PR'd, eval'd in CI, and shippable with feature flags. Diff a prod prompt vs canary in one click. Replay yesterday's traffic against the new prompt before merging.

How Real Problem AI scores this opportunity

Aggregate score: 7.7 / 10. Four-axis rubric:

Problem severity: 7 / 10
AI feasibility today: 9 / 10
Market signal: 8 / 10
Competition gap: 6 / 10

How to build a solution: stack hints

Git-backed prompt store
CI eval pipeline (regression + golden set)
Feature-flag SDK for prompt rollout
Traffic replay sandbox