Relay, an AI-powered workflow automation tool created as an alternative to Zapier, shut down completely in August. The product allowed users to automate task and email workflows using AI agents, but as OpenAI, Google, and other larger platforms built similar automation directly into their own tools, the five-year-old Relay struggled to maintain a reason to exist as a standalone product. Most recently, chatbot platform Character.ai filed for bankruptcy just five years after its launch. Aside from Character.ai and Relay, many AI bets don’t even survive within the companies that create them. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, around 42% of AI initiatives are eventually abandoned by their parent companies. The reasons vary: insufficient funding, technical challenges, competition, difficulty in scaling, or simply weak user demand. The result is a growing AI graveyard. Below are some of the most notable AI products, startups, launches, and bets that have shut down, pivoted, or significantly missed expectations. Think of it less as a scorecard of failures than as a record of what these attempts can (hopefully) teach the rest of the industry. OpenAI has suffered several setbacks. Image Credits: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg / Getty Images Even the biggest players aren’t immune. OpenAI, one of the most valuable private companies in the world, has had its own share of casualties and errors. One of the most recent examples was their attempt to turn ChatGPT into a broader “super app.” On July 9, OpenAI updated the app to combine several experiences, including separate “Chat,” “Codex,” and “Work” modes, while renaming the traditional, familiar version to “ChatGPT Classic.” The redesign quickly drew criticism from users who found the new interface confusing and cluttered, and OpenAI reverted the change shortly after, bringing back the familiar ChatGPT interface. That wasn’t OpenAI’s only attempt to bring everything under one roof. The company also shut down several standalone apps and rolled their features directly into ChatGPT, a strategy that worked better than the redesign. ChatGPT Atlas, a standalone AI-powered web browser, lasted less than a year before being discontinued on August 9, with its most useful features absorbed by ChatGPT. The company did the same with Operator, an AI agent that could browse the web and complete tasks on behalf of a user, and OpenAI has increasingly built image generation directly into ChatGPT, reducing DALL-E’s role as its own standalone destination for image creation. We also can’t forget its video-sharing platform, Sora, which struggled with high operating costs and user retention challenges and shut down in March 2026. Apple’s Siri AI image credits: Artur Widak/NurPhoto / Getty Images When Apple introduced Apple Intelligence in 2024, an improved Siri was one of the standout features. The proposal promised a Siri that could understand context, know what was happening in apps, and perform tasks effectively. However, Apple repeatedly delayed the release of the new Siri, citing various reasons such as engineering issues and bugs. This delay ultimately contributed to a $250 million settlement over claims over how Apple marketed the iPhone 16’s AI capabilities. Siri AI finally appeared in the iOS 27 beta last July, and the new AI-powered version was released to English-language users for the first time this month; Support for other languages is expected to follow. Microsoft Recall Announced at its Build 2024 developer conference, Microsoft’s Recall feature was introduced as an AI-powered “photo memory” for Windows PCs, which periodically took screenshots of what a user was doing so they could then search their own digital history. Unsurprisingly, the announcement sparked immediate backlash over privacy and security. Critics argued that Recall could create a searchable archive of highly sensitive information, including passwords, private messages, financial details, and other activities. Microsoft delayed the feature for almost a year, giving the company time to rethink its security and privacy protections. Even after a redesign, the controversy has not gone away. A cybersecurity researcher recently created a tool that could extract and display data that Recall had captured, reviving questions about whether Microsoft has actually fixed the underlying problem. Notion Mail Image Credits: Notion Notion Mail launched in April 2025 as an AI-focused email product designed to help users organize and automate their inboxes. However, the company noticed that its users were using separate AI agents to handle their email inboxes. As a result, Notion Mail is scheduled to close on September 22. Humane AI Pin Image Credits: Brian Heater The Humane AI Pin is probably one of the most well-known flaws in AI hardware. Designed to provide AI capabilities through a wearable device rather than a traditional smartphone, Humane raised $230 million from investors and attracted significant attention. But the product had major problems with performance and the situation worsened when Humane warned customers to stop using its charging case due to the possible risk of battery fire. Humane then closed its AI Pin business in February 2025, and HP acquired most of the company’s assets for $116 million. Rabbit R1 Image Credits: Rabbit The Rabbit R1 was another much-hyped AI device. Unveiled at CES in January 2024, the AI companion was designed to perform tasks on behalf of its owner. Rabbit said it had sold 100,000 units shortly after launch. However, strong initial sales did not mean it was a solid product. Early reviews described the device as unfinished, with unreliable performance and a limited number of useful integrations. However, the company has not given up. The R1 has continued to be updated, positioning it as a computer controller capable of performing agency tasks. It also recently announced a new hardware project, called “Project Cyberdeck”, aimed at creating a wearable device designed for vibration encoding. Huxe Image Credits: Huxe Huxe was an AI audio application, created by former Google NotebookLM developers, that converted written information into podcast-style conversational audio. The company closed in May 2026, in part because larger platforms began offering similar experiences to large existing audiences. For example, Spotify has been expanding its own AI-based audio tools. Yupp Image Credits: Yupp Yupp was an interesting AI product: a free playground that allowed users to compare responses from hundreds of AI models side by side. Users can also vote on answers and earn cryptocurrency through the platform. At its peak, the platform allowed users to test more than 800 models, including those from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. But according to its founders, Yupp never achieved a product-market strong enough to survive. The platform closed in March 2026. Figgs AI Figgs AI operated from 2023 to 2024, allowing users to create and interact with customizable AI characters for role-playing and storytelling. The platform reportedly attracted more than 1 million users, but its developers said keeping the service free became too expensive and they shut it down. When you buy through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
