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 Section 194T turn every Indian partnership firm into a part-time TDS clerk?

Every partner draw, salary, interest, bonus, now needs 10% TDS deducted, deposited monthly, and Form 26Q-filed quarterly, or you eat 30% expense disallowance under 40(a)(ia).

Category: FinTech · Trend: LLM · Opportunity score: 8.8 / 10

What is the “Why does Section 194T turn every Indian partnership firm into a part-time TDS clerk?” problem in 2026?

Every partner draw, salary, interest, bonus, now needs 10% TDS deducted, deposited monthly, and Form 26Q-filed quarterly, or you eat 30% expense disallowance under 40(a)(ia).

Who has this problem?

2-10 partner CA firms, law firms, architecture and design LLPs in India who never had to deal with TDS-on-partner-pay before AY 2026-27.

Evidence this problem is real

“Most CA firms now charge ₹3-8k/month per partnership client just to handle the 194T loop on top of regular bookkeeping.”

Sourced from ClearTax + Taxmann + RJA practitioner coverage of Section 194T (link)

Existing players in this space

ClearTax — Generic TDS filing; no partner-pay event detection.
TaxCloud / Saral TDS — Filing-side; not at the Tally journal-voucher boundary.
Tally Prime — Where the partner draw lives, but no 194T compliance overlay.
Zoho Books — Bookkeeping; no auto challan + Form 16A per partner draw.

What existing players are missing

An overlay that watches Tally / Zoho ledger entries for partner draw events, auto-issues per-partner TDS challan, generates Form 16A, and pushes the filing batch to ClearTax for sign-off. Sells per-partnership-firm at ₹2-5k/mo.

How Real Problem AI scores this opportunity

Aggregate score: 8.8 / 10. Four-axis rubric:

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

How to build a solution: stack hints

Tally / Zoho Books read API
Income-tax challan auto-fill
Form 26Q quarterly batch builder
Partner-level audit trail