Two ways for an AI company to protect itself from competition: (a) depend not just on AI but also deep domain knowledge about a particular field, (b) have a very close relationship with the end users.
Two ways for an AI company to protect itself from competition: (a) depend not just on AI but also deep domain knowledge about a particular field, (b) have a very close relationship with the end users.

You can be the best product for small market, build a real company, and then from a position of strength, either stay there or attempt to expand to adjacent markets.
Or be undistictive in a huge market, out-advertised and invisible, never getting off the ground.
However, a key risk with several of these startups is the potential lack of a long-term moat. It is difficult to read too much into it given the stage of these startups and the limited public information available but it’s not difficult to poke holes at their long term defensibility. For example:
- If a startup is built on the premise of taking base L
AI Startup Trends: Insights from Y Combinator’s Latest Batch
“At both Viaweb and YC, every minute I spent thinking about competitors was, in retrospect, a minute wasted... It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors — so rare that you can almost discount the possibility... Inexperienced founders usually give competitors more credit than they deserve. Whether you succeed depends far more
... See more