In recent years, artificial intelligence has transformed from a futuristic promise to an everyday reality. However, along with this evolution, debates have arisen about what actually makes a company an “AI” company. A recurring criticism is directed at startups that base their projects on integrations with generative AI APIs, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, questioning whether these companies can really call themselves AI startups. But is this criticism justified?
The idea that only companies that develop their own models and algorithms are truly “AI companies” is, at the very least, limited. In practice, innovation and competitive advantage are not just in the technology itself, but in how it is used to solve real problems, generate value and create competitive advantages.
Strategic integration is the difference
Integrating APIs like ChatGPT’s goes far beyond simply “using a tool.” Startups that embrace these technologies are automating processes, personalizing experiences, and creating new products in ways that would have been unimaginable without AI. Strategic use of these tools can profoundly transform a business model and can often be the tipping point that allows these companies to grow and excel.
Ready Tools
The criticism that a startup that uses ready-made APIs is not an AI company also ignores a reality of the technology market itself: dependence on ready-made tools and libraries is common, even among the most technical experts. Data scientists often use machine learning libraries like TensorFlow or PyTorch, which encapsulate years of research and development into accessible and easy-to-use tools, for example.
Strategic Choice
Therefore, using an API like ChatGPT’s is actually a strategic choice that allows startups to focus on what really matters: the practical application of AI. Instead of reinventing the wheel, these companies are using the best of the available technologies to innovate and deliver value quickly.
Entry barriers
However, there must be a great concern with the real value and competitive advantage that is being developed. And in this sense, when it comes to Generative Artificial Intelligence, the great challenge is to go beyond the basics, that is, to seek more than just creating efficient prompts and integrating them via API into a pretty interface.
Competitive Advantage
In the end, what really matters is not whether a startup is an AI startup or not, but rather the competitive edge of its proposal and the barriers to entry it builds to remain unique in the market. Often, these barriers come from the exclusivity of the data that the company collects and uses, the way it integrates APIs into its workflow, or even the customization of algorithms for specific use cases, managing to transform these integrations into valuable parts of highly specialized solutions.
What really matters
Ultimately, what makes a startup valuable, with or without AI, is not whether it develops everything from scratch or uses ready-made technologies. The focus should be on the impact generated, the problems solved, and the innovation applied to the business context.
Therefore, companies that know how to use these generative AI APIs in a strategic, creative and results-oriented way are, without a doubt, AI companies. And, at the fast pace at which things are happening, perhaps this ease of coupling and decoupling increasingly powerful generative AI platforms extremely quickly could be the startup’s greatest competitive advantage.
