Top AI startups to watch in 2023

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are not just the future of technology, they are also the future of many industries. Whether the technologies are being used in health tech, creative production, or to help our online interactions, incredible advancements have been made through extensive investment. These automated technologies are entering widespread use to make our lives easier. 

Here’s our hand-picked list of AI and ML startups that have been making waves in their respective industries.

Wasteless

Considering how demand for finding climate change solutions is at an all-time high, one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions is food waste. To fight this, Wasteless is on a mission to lower food waste in retail by 80%. With funding of $9.75 million, Wasteless is an AI-powered pricing engine that dynamically sets the price of perishable foods and lowers prices automatically as items near expiration dates. Moreover, by selling food that would otherwise be thrown out, the stores boost their revenues and save on operating expenses and labor. Recently, the company won several awards including Accenture AI Award for its proprietary AI pricing engine at Seeds&Chips, at Rabobank’s FoodBytes NYC, AGFunder, Emerce, and SOSV Climate Tech 100, and World Economic Forum singled out the company as a leading circular economy solution.

Acrolinx

Coming up with creative and engaging B2B content can be a time-consuming, daunting, and oftentimes dry task, which may also go through endless rounds of editing and rewrites. To simplify this process, Acrolinx introduced its AI-powered software platform that uses a linguistic analytics engine to “read” all of a company’s content and give instant guidance on how to improve it. Backed by $60 million in funding and utilized by leaders including Citibank, Visa, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, PayPal, Adobe, Siemens, Lenovo, and many more, Acrolinx aims to solve these challenges by helping professional content writers improve the quality and effectiveness of enterprise content. 

Aimi Long gone are the days of radio – music listening and streaming apps have been critical for music discovery in the modern world. However, even with these apps, Music traditionally has been played at listeners, instead of for listeners. But for people who don’t have the time to dig through complicated libraries or create playlists, Aimi’s AI-powered music streaming platform enables listeners to just press play without any worries. Artists on the platform are able to create, publish, and monetize music, while also giving their audience a seamless listening experience. With a team comprised of leading scientists, music lovers, and passionate artists, Aimi is bringing AI together with the art of music to enable a new generation of artists that will fundamentally change our relationship with music. The company has received around $20 million in funding so far and we can’t wait for its official launch soon.

Dataloop

Much like how a book needs a title to give us a sense of what it’s about, data annotation is a crucial function to enable machines to “learn.” Dataloop is a platform for AI data annotation and data management. By combining human and machine intelligence, the company’s platform streamlines the management of unstructured data and enables enterprises to take their AI ideas from development to production. Altogether, Dataloop aims to eliminate the data challenges companies face by supporting the full data lifecycle and helping to make machine learning systems fast, accurate, affordable, and scalable. After recently securing a fresh $33 million in Series B funding, support for the startup has grown to $50 million total.

Unbabel

For global companies, having multilingual customer service is crucial to serving universal needs at the local level. Unbabel’s Language Operations platform blends advanced AI with humans in the loop, enabling multilingual translations that get smarter over time. As a result of enabling great service in the customer’s own language, Unbabel removes the language barrier for companies by scaling customer service operations, reducing costs, and managing growth. Companies that continue to grow and enter new global markets are able to build customer trust by creating more consistent, high-quality multilingual customer experiences. With total funding of around $92.1 million, Unbabel has already worked with top brands including Booking.com, Nestlé, Panasonic, Patagonia, UPS, and more.

ROOM

Video meetings can be a dull yet necessary form of communication across remote teams, but ROOM disagrees that it should stay this way. With video game developing veterans at the helm, ROOM disrupts the boxed, Brady Bunch-like layouts typical to video calls and puts users in virtual rooms of all sizes to meet, learn, present, and work in a way that mimics real life. Through utilizing AI and its in-house RealityOS™ engine to gamify video meetings, ROOM brings fun and inviting spaces back to meetings and collaborative online sessions. With funding of around $6 million, ROOM has been making waves throughout the media landscape, appearing in Fast Company, PC Mag, Eurogamer, and many other publications.

Inworld AI  

We have all grown up with fictional characters that we admired and looked up to, but what if you could talk to them as if they were “alive”? Inworld AI is a developer platform for creating AI-driven virtual characters for gaming, the metaverse, VR/AR, and immersive experiences of all kinds, allowing character models to have lifelike personalities and talk back. Founded by leading experts and pioneers in the fields of conversational AI and generative models, the team previously launched API.AI, which was the highest-rated independent voice assistant in the world. The project was later renamed Dialogflow and was acquired by Google. Currently, Inworld AI is the most popular conversational AI platform in the market, used by millions of developers, and is backed by prominent VCs and angels in the gaming and wider tech industry. To date, it has raised around $69.7 million in funding.

Pony.ai 

While yellow checkered cars may have become a symbol of taxis around the world, residents of Silicon Valley are no strangers to these self-driving Robotaxis with peripheral cameras on their roofs. With around $1.1 billion in funding – giving it unicorn status – Pony.ai is a startup that is all about creating autonomous driving solutions using AI technology. As a pioneer in autonomous mobility technologies and services across the US and China, Pony.ai is spearheading Robotaxi pilots on public streets in both markets. The company claims it is committed to creating a safe and sustainable mobility future by delivering autonomous mobility everywhere. 

DeepL

While machine translation has been in the market for decades, this startup has cracked the code for delivering translated text informed by all the cultural nuances and idioms found throughout various human languages. Through using AI and ML, DeepL has proven itself worthy of the title of “the world’s best machine translator” and routinely tops the app stores and software review websites with its highly accurate translations. While it currently covers 27 languages – which may be fewer than the number of languages at some of its bigger competitors – DeepL’s success comes from its focus on accuracy over quantity.

Zebra

Early detection is a primary step to preventing and fighting virtually any disease. To accelerate this vital step, Zebra, acquired by Nanox, has developed machine-learning algorithms to help radiologists to detect a wide range of diseases early. The company also hosts a database of millions of medical images to assist in the assessment and planning of life-saving surgeries. Zebra received funding of over $57 million and is backed by Marc Benioff, Johnson & Johnson, Khosla Ventures, Dolby Ventures, Nvidia, and more, while being featured in top-tier publications including TechCrunch, Forbes, VentureBeat, and Fast Company.

Xayn

Having curated digital content can be convenient and is shown to boost engagement among users. But many readers prefer not to share the private data necessary to enable such eerie customization. In comes Xayn, the AI-powered news reader that gives you the headlines you want without sacrificing your personal data. With funding of $23 million, the platform is highly personalized, completely private, carbon neutral, and more. Having been covered in places like TechCrunch, Engadget, and BBC shows the industry is looking to Xayn as the best news reader that gives readers the best, most ethical experience without sacrificing engagement. 

As time goes on, AI and ML technology will only continue to grow more sophisticated year after year. With the technology’s infinite potential to maximize and streamline every task imaginable, it is only a matter of time before the way we live and work is completely unrecognizable. As more funding goes into AI and ML startups, it will be exciting to see how startups use the technology to improve human lives around the globe.