Relay was an AI-driven workflow automation tool positioned as an alternative to Zapier, but it was permanently shut down in August. The product enabled users to automate email and task workflows using AI agents. However, as OpenAI, Google, and other larger platforms have integrated similar automation features directly into their own tools, Relay—now five years old—has increasingly struggled to justify its existence as a standalone product.
More recently, the chatbot platform Character.ai filed for bankruptcy just five years after its launch.
Beyond Character.ai and Relay, many AI ventures didn’t even survive within the companies that developed them. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, approximately 42% of AI projects are ultimately abandoned by their parent companies. Reasons vary: insufficient funding, technical challenges, competition, difficulties in scaling, or simply weak user demand.
As a result, a growing AI “cemetery” is taking shape. Below are some of the most notable AI products, startups, launches, and bets that have been shut down, pivoted, or clearly fallen short of expectations. Rather than viewing this list as a scoreboard of failures, consider it a record of the lessons these attempts leave for the entire industry.
OpenAI has also had a few missteps.
Even the largest players are not immune. OpenAI, one of the world’s most valuable private companies, has had its own setbacks and missteps. A more recent example is its attempt to transform ChatGPT into a broader “super app.” On July 9, OpenAI updated the application, integrating multiple experiences—including standalone “Chat,” “Codex,” and “Work” modes—and renamed the traditional, familiar version “ChatGPT Classic.”
This redesign was quickly criticized by users, many of whom found the new interface confusing and cluttered. OpenAI soon rolled back the change and restored the familiar ChatGPT interface.
This is not the first time OpenAI has attempted to consolidate all its features under one roof. The company has also shut down several standalone apps and integrated their functionalities directly into ChatGPT—a strategy that has clearly proven more successful than that previous interface redesign. ChatGPT Atlas, a standalone AI web browser, was discontinued after less than a year of operation, with its most useful features now incorporated into ChatGPT as of August 9.
The company has done the same thing with Operator, an AI agent that browses the web and performs tasks on behalf of users; meanwhile, OpenAI has increasingly integrated image generation directly into ChatGPT, reducing DALL-E’s role as a standalone entry point for image creation.
Don’t forget its video sharing platform, Sora. The platform struggled due to high operating costs and user retention issues, and shut down in March 2026.
When Apple released Apple Intelligence in 2024, the enhanced Siri was one of the key features. Its marketing promised a Siri capable of understanding context, knowing what’s happening across apps, and efficiently completing tasks.
However, Apple repeatedly delayed the release of the new Siri due to various engineering issues and vulnerabilities, ultimately leading to a $250 million settlement over how Apple marketed the AI capabilities of the iPhone 16.
Siri AI finally appeared in the iOS 27 beta in July this year, and this new AI version has now been rolled out first to English users this month; support for additional languages is expected to follow.
When Microsoft introduced the Recall feature at the 2024 Build developer conference, it described it as an AI “photographic memory” for Windows PCs that periodically takes screenshots of what users are doing, making it easier to revisit their digital history.
It was foreseeable that this announcement immediately sparked strong backlash over privacy and security concerns. Critics argued that Recall could create a searchable archive of highly sensitive information, including passwords, private messages, financial details, and other activities. In response, Microsoft delayed the feature by nearly a year to reassess its security and privacy safeguards.
Even after redesign, the controversy has not disappeared. Recently, a cybersecurity researcher built a tool capable of extracting and displaying Recall-captured data, reigniting external doubts about whether Microsoft has truly fixed the underlying issue.
Notion Mail, launched in April 2025, is an AI-powered email product designed to help users organize and automate their inboxes. However, the company observed that users were actually using separate AI agents to manage their emails. As a result, Notion Mail will be shut down on September 22.
The Humane AI Pin is perhaps one of the most well-known failures in the AI hardware space. The product aimed to deliver AI capabilities through a wearable device rather than a traditional smartphone, raising $230 million from investors and attracting significant attention.
However, the product performed poorly, and the situation worsened when Humane warned customers to stop using its charging case due to a potential risk of battery fires. Subsequently, in February 2025, Humane shut down its AI Pin business, and most of its assets were acquired by HP for $116 million.
The Rabbit R1 is another highly hyped AI device. This AI companion debuted at CES in January 2024, designed to perform tasks on behalf of its owner. Rabbit claims that shortly after its release, 100,000 units were sold.
However, strong initial sales do not mean it is a mature product. Early reviews stated that the device is unfinished, has unstable performance, and offers limited integration capabilities.
But the company did not give up. It continued to update the R1, positioning it as a computer controller capable of executing agent-based tasks. The company has also recently announced a new hardware project, codenamed “Project Cyberdeck,” aimed at creating a portable device designed specifically for vibe-coding.
Huxe is an AI audio app developed by former creators of Google Notebook LM, capable of transforming written content into conversational, podcast-style audio.
The company shut down in May 2026, partly because larger platforms began offering similar experiences to their large existing user bases. For example, Spotify has been expanding its AI audio tools.
Yupp is an intriguing AI product: it’s a free testing ground that lets users compare responses from hundreds of AI models side by side. Users can also vote on responses and earn cryptocurrency through the platform.
At its peak, the platform allowed users to test more than 800 models, including those from companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. However, according to its founder, Yupp never achieved sufficient product-market fit to sustain operations. The platform shut down in March 2026.
Figgs AI operated between 2023 and 2024, allowing users to create and interact with customizable AI characters for role-playing and storytelling. The platform reportedly attracted over one million users, but its developers stated that the cost of maintaining the free service was too high to sustain, leading them to shut it down.
