I tested 3 popular AI startup ideas. Here's what happened.

The dentist example is the most interesting one here — not because of the idea itself, but because of what it reveals. Narrow vertical + clear outcome + offline customer = you can actually get in a car and close the first 10. That's a distribution strategy, not a hope.

The resume builder verdict is right but for a reason worth naming: it's not just crowded, it's a one-time-use product for most people. No retention, no expansion revenue, and the job is done the moment someone gets hired. That's a hard business even without competition.

To your question — most overhyped category right now is probably AI agents for general productivity. Everyone's building the "do everything for you" assistant and nobody's figured out that users don't want an agent, they want a specific annoying task to disappear. The more abstract the use case, the harder the sell.

The real opportunity is still in boring verticals where the incumbent software is ugly, the customers are not technical, and nobody from YC wants to fly out and sell to them.

AI Resume Builder

Interesting.

The thing I'd be careful with is that startup ideas can fail for very different reasons, but a validation tool can end up labeling them the same way.

The risk isn't making the wrong verdict.

The risk is becoming confident about the wrong decision.

That sounds subtle, but it tends to matter more as the tool becomes more opinionated.