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 does my Etsy shop traffic die every time Etsy tweaks search?

Etsy sellers see overnight 40 to 70 percent traffic drops after algorithm changes with no visibility into which listings were demoted or why.

Category: E-commerce & Retail · Trend: Agents · Opportunity score: 8.5 / 10

What is the “Why does my Etsy shop traffic die every time Etsy tweaks search?” problem in 2026?

Etsy sellers see overnight 40 to 70 percent traffic drops after algorithm changes with no visibility into which listings were demoted or why.

Who has this problem?

Full-time Etsy seller with 50 to 500 active listings.

Evidence this problem is real

“My traffic dropped 70 percent overnight on Tuesday. eRank shows my keywords have not changed. Etsy support gives the same canned response. I have no idea which listings to fix.”

Sourced from r/EtsySellers threads on algorithm-driven traffic drops.

Existing players in this space

eRank — Keyword research, weak diagnostic.
Marmalead — Tag suggestions, no drop attribution.
Alura — SEO tools, no algorithm-change diff.

What existing players are missing

Daily listing-level rank tracking with attribution: which listings lost positions, on which keywords, correlated with known Etsy algorithm shifts.

How Real Problem AI scores this opportunity

Aggregate score: 8.5 / 10. Four-axis rubric:

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

How to build a solution: stack hints

Playwright rank scraping
Postgres time-series
Claude for diagnosis writeup
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