AIR Cohort 2: Call for startups
What we’re excited about for the next AI Residency cohort.
At AIR, we back small teams building AI products that feel human, useful, and new — from idea stage to Series B. We’re looking for founders who see opportunity in broken systems, platform shifts, overlooked niches, or emerging secular trends—and who are bold enough to reimagine them.
When you think about your own work, ask yourself:
- How can your application of AI genuinely improve our quality of life?
- What problems are uniquely addressable by the AI platform shift, which incumbents are unaware or too slow to build for?
- What will it take to get this into the hands of 1 million people?
- How will being surrounded by a handful of the best AI operators in the world change the trajectory of your business forever?
We believe the best entrepreneurs find opportunity where no one else sees it, including us. The areas outlined below excite us, but we fully expect that some AIR Cohort Two companies will draw outside of the lines. Here are a few areas we’re especially interested in:
New Experiences
Since the genesis of Collaborative Fund in 2010, we have been committed to investing in companies that make the world a more interesting place, think Reddit, Perfectly Imperfect, or Danger Testing (Cohort One). AI offers an entirely new vector for companies to push culture forward. From new, more passive hardware interfaces that move us away from our phones like Wispr Flow or Granola, to those yet to be built platforms that embrace the emotional frontier.
This is especially exciting when applied to a new generation of consumers, and an evershifting landscape of subcultures that have the potential to become mainstream in the next decade.
Fintech
People don’t want “financial dashboards”—they want outcomes: more savings, fewer fees, less stress. AI can deliver this as a true financial autopilot: negotiating bills, optimizing taxes, spotting fraud, or even running parts of a small business’s back office. The key is to start with a single win and let automation expand over time, turning headaches into peace of mind.
We’re drawn to products that look and feel like consumer apps but solve hard financial plumbing to get there. Whether you’re building with stablecoins, tokenized stock, or instant ACH payments—if you can combine trust, automation, and a delightful user experience, you can change how households and businesses interact with money.
Consumer Applications
AI is changing how people create, share, and belong online. Instead of just consuming, people want tools that help them make—stories, music, communities, identities. The biggest opportunities will look like toys at first: a new creative tool, a playful social layer, a quirky marketplace. AI gives those toys superpowers that can evolve into entirely new platforms.
The influencer driven social media ecosystem, for example, is struggling to respond to GenAI creators. There is room to build the next generation social platform that caters to the GenAI creators and world builders natively. Sora 2 is just the beginning.
We want founders unafraid to start weird, personal, and small. If your product helps people express themselves or connect in ways that feel magical and new, AI can amplify that into the next wave of consumer platforms.
The Creator Economy & New Forms of Monetization
For all its flaws, the creator economy has unlocked a massive class of entrepreneurs, but the mechanisms for earning are still clunky and heavily intermediated. We are excited by companies creating new ways for individuals to monetize their influence, taste, and community.
We’re looking for AI-powered companies that:
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Help creators monetize in novel ways beyond ads and platform subscriptions. This includes creating new asset classes, unlocking tokenized services, or building new forms of IP ownership around community-driven content.
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Expand the universe of who can earn. The ability to earn a sustainable income shouldn’t be limited to megastars. We are looking for platforms that lower the barrier to entry, turning personal trust, unique taste, or deep niche expertise into meaningful, long-term income streams for everyone from community builders to hyper-local experts.
Healthcare & Wellness
Healthcare is dominated by paperwork, opaque billing, and manual follow-up. AI makes it possible to build patient-first experiences: faster authorizations, clearer explanations, seamless billing, or at-home diagnostics that plug directly into care. The best ideas will start with one painful workflow that feels broken to patients or families and re-architect it end-to-end bringing users peace of mind.
We’re looking for founders who use AI to turn the healthcare system or their own personal wellness journey from confusing and reactive into transparent and proactive.
Learning & Education
For decades, education has been one size-fits-all. AI makes personalization possible: adaptive lessons, real-time feedback, and customized learning plans.
We’re looking for startups that start with a single, delightful learning tool and then grow into broader educational journeys. If you can make learning feel tailored, engaging, and effective, you can help students unlock their full potential.
Housing Affordability
Real estate is the world’s largest asset class, yet is increasingly out of reach of more and more people. The median age of a homebuyer was 56 in 2024, against 31 in 1981. AI can make navigating zoning laws, planning, building, or building more efficient to start to close that gap.
We’re looking for startups that can have a real impact in a given area—and then expand deeper into the stack.
What We’re Looking For
We know the best ideas won’t always fit neatly into these categories. If you’re building something new, human, and deeply needed—we want to hear from you.
Applications will be open through November 16th with final decisions made in mid-December, kicking off in January 2026.