Microsoft backed this $1.5 billion AI startup that was just discovered to be 700 engineers pretending to be AI

Now, here's a story you don't see every day. London-based AI startup Builder.ai has filed for bankruptcy after it was discovered that its "AI" services were secretly operated by a team of 700 human employees in India, masquerading as AI chatbots.

The tech firm previously marketed its services as an AI-powered tool designed to simplify app development, generating code based on queries supplied by the customer. It turns out that most of these queries were being handled by real human beings, and not artificial intelligence.

Builder.ai's services have been under scrutiny for some time. As far back as 2019, questions were asked about the legitimacy of its AI claims.

Last month, financial lender Viola Credit seized $37 million from Builder.ai, which led to a damning discovery that has only made things worse. Builder.ai had inflated its 2024 revenue projections by 300%, meaning its actual revenue was far below what it had previously told investors.

Builder.ai was backed by some big names in the tech space, including Microsoft. In 2023, Builder.ai and Microsoft announced a "strategic collaboration" that included integration in Teams and an equity investment from Microsoft.

When the partnership was first announced, Microsoft said "we see Builder.ai creating an entirely new category that empowers everyone to be a developer and our new, deeper collaboration fuelled by Azure AI will bring the combined power of both companies to businesses around the world."

Now, Microsoft is reportedly owed over $30 million in unpaid cloud computing fees, a sum that's unlikely to ever be settled now that the company has filed for bankruptcy.

https://medium.com/@divyanshbhatiajm19/buil...rs-2a0d35fc4af8

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Bharat superpower !
iGamer's skynet overlords turn out to be machas.

Sure those 700 are engineers?

A.I - Actually Indians

So big tech firm pin keno scammed by yindian IT flers?

good one

work done by human. invest? no
work done by ai. invest? yes

ai > human

Microsoft didn't do due diligence b4 investing?

I dunno but a certain type is really good at marketing, promoting themselves and convincing people to believe in them. You can see this type very good in positioning themselves and landing themselves very high positions be it in the government, private sector and even in political parties. They can be Governors, Mayors, Elected Representatives and even Prime Ministers in AMDK countries.

This post has been edited by TOMEI-R: Jun 6 2025, 06:44 PM

So they didn’t lie, only misunderstood.

where is microsoft ceo from?

Microsoft also pokai?

Thats good news, human problem need human touch. Full stop.

indian ceo
he knows how to goreng those gullible investors



This post has been edited by balambgarden: Jun 6 2025, 06:24 PM

So 700 dudes pretending to be machine pretending to be a dude

Slow
There’s a thread dy few days ago

so uk bharat teach 700 bharat to scam. They call it misunderstood AI

Wen they manage to infiltrate the org with high position
Then u can see they start replacing people with their race top down

There's too much money in tech. All throw money in hoping one of them will be a unicorn. Just 1 jackpot enough to make up for all the other losses.

Remember Theranos?

Habis la. India made Bill Gates mad.

He's gonna pull all. Investment out soon. Habis la Modi

Selowpukimax

Anyway already listen to both side of story?