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?

Lesson learnt, never trust a company with full of tokok culture

How they found out this scam?
Got user find words like 'saar' 'redeem' 'show vagane'?

if the ceo terlampau pandai kelong either the company be big very fast or lingkup very fast. no in the middle

Raisin entertaiment already create this first

What if human replly as A.I 😂

Lots of promises and talk cock but results nil. 😅

Indian was a good scammer i igve them rating 8/10 . didn't believe they manage to fool microsoft though lmao

Must've gotten exposed when the 'ai" starts asking for bobs and vagene on the pretext of providing a more relevant and accurate response to its users queries

They got job but as a scammer. How long a scammer can work?

Alot MNCs get cheated by Bharatian due to their proficiency in telling stories. Not my fault, is the other party. Even evidences shown they were at fault, yet they still can escape without penalties. Awesome....

So maybe Builder.ai founder also the victims of Bharatian, which he initially thought to hire 700 to build real AI

This post has been edited by RagingCandy: Jun 7 2025, 07:44 AM

What? Pajeets pajeeting?

*fake disbelief*

Sachin Dev Duggal

https://www.peoplematters.in/news/startups/...it-was-ai-45865

Former employees revealed that “there was no real AI”—a sentiment echoed by Robert Holdheim, a former executive who sued Builder.ai for $5 million. He claimed he was fired after raising concerns about deceptive practices and misleading marketing to investors. Internal documents showed that apps were advertised as being “80% built by AI” when in fact, the tools behind Natasha were barely functional.

https://www.peoplematters.in/news/startups/...it-was-ai-45865


Things took a sharper turn in early 2025 when Manpreet Ratia replaced Duggal as CEO in a last-ditch effort to regain credibility. What he found was alarming. Builder.ai had claimed $220 million in revenue for 2024, but an independent audit revealed the actual figure was closer to $50 million.

After the firm entered insolvency proceedings in the UK late last month – two months after Duggal was replaced by Manpreet Ratia, a managing partner at Asia-focused investor Jungle Ventures, as CEO – [B]it was revealed that Natasha was, in fact, 700 Indian programmers responding to requests from clients in real-time.

kalau tak tipu...

This post has been edited by JimbeamofNRT: Jun 7 2025, 07:58 AM

Sarr, it is real AI, Sarr. All Indians, Sarr!

When you use their platform, your reply wouldn't be from Artificial Intelligence GPU but All Indians from Bangalore.

This post has been edited by gaman: Jun 7 2025, 08:00 AM

most of the startup are liddis

even in MY

bahrats...

Should investigate those customers as well. They believed it took a few days for the AI to generate some code or maybe they got kickbacks while defrauding their companies?

the authorities are investigating this area as well, it looks like they colluded with some customers with fake invoices to inflate their profits. much like what serbuk dinamite did

They are all talk no action

Not I say one, angmoh sendiri told me

https://youtu.be/kTbt-yxUa4I?si=xsohMvXTFIurQ9Vw

Cepat cepat apply India green card, lambat nnti bg batu pun x dpt