Builder AI

2025

Builder.ai’s pitch was irresistible. A powerful AI that could take your idea and automatically build a complex app, no coding required. It was the ultimate AI awesomeness. To investors and customers, this was the future. The company raised hundreds of millions and achieved a $1.5B valuation, backed by Microsoft and other investors.

But… when a customer submitted a project, it wasn't fed to a brilliant algorithm. It sent to engineers in India who did the actual coding. It’s absurd, hundreds of engineers were manually coding, all while pretending to be AI. To preserve the illusion, builders were instructed to speak in AI-style responses, and avoid Indian English idioms such as “Do the needful “ (which is a common phrase in Indian English. It means do that which is needed).

When auditors and reporters uncovered massive revenue inflation, dubious trading with partners, and the human core behind the so-called AI, it was game over.

It is hard to find a better example of the peak AI hype bubble. Second place would be Amazon’s AI-powered cashier-free shops, that was also powered by lots of humans in India.

Additional info:

Segler Consulting - Anatomy of a Half-a-Billion-Dollar Deception

Tech AI Magazine - How Builder.AI Became The Most Elaborate AI Fraud