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
https://www.techinasia.com/news/builder-ai-...er-losing-funds

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

SELOW

petpenyubobo i remember you shared this news before? or is it someone else. it is a twitter post.

This post has been edited by ipohps3: Jun 6 2025, 06:11 PM

Slow
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/5526333