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 does losing one phone lock you out of email, bank and cloud all at once?

After a phone theft, a user could not get into Google or any account tied to the phone's 2FA, every recovery option assumed the old phone or an email unused for 12 years, and there was no human to appeal to.

Category: Others · Trend: Agents · Opportunity score: 7.9 / 10

What is the “Why does losing one phone lock you out of email, bank and cloud all at once?” problem in 2026?

Who has this problem?

Everyday users and families whose email, banking and cloud accounts depend on one phone for two-factor authentication.

Recorded source context

Dataset source note: after my phone was stolen, I can't get into any of my accounts that are either connected to google, or connected to the phone via 2FA.

This note may summarize the referenced material rather than quote it verbatim. Source label: Ask HN thread on recovering Google authentication after a phone was stolen, 17 September 2026, 124 points and 131 comments. (primary source).

Existing players in this space

Google backup codes and recovery settings: Work only if set up and stored before the phone is lost.
1Password and Bitwarden: Store passwords and TOTP seeds, but most people never audit which accounts still depend on the phone.
Hardware keys such as YubiKey: Strong backup factor that few non-technical users set up.

What existing players are missing

A recovery-readiness assistant that inventories which accounts depend on the phone number or authenticator, walks the user through adding a second factor and backup codes for each, and keeps an offline recovery kit, plus a guided playbook for the day the phone is gone.

How Real Problem AI scores this opportunity

Aggregate score: 7.9 / 10. Four-axis rubric:

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

How to build a solution: stack hints

Password manager export parsing
LLM guided setup per service
Encrypted offline recovery kit
Step-by-step recovery playbooks