Looking at the most heavily funded startups of the year — a list that includes OpenAI, xAI, CoreWeave and Safe Superintelligence — none has a name one could describe as “fun.” It’s as if they had asked an AI chatbot for something that would score hefty investment but amuse no one.
“They don’t have much playfulness,” said Bruno Benedini, a founder of branding consultancy Taillight, regarding the general universe of AI startup names. “You have basically every word you can think of with AI tacked on to the end.”