In this post
This post summarizes a short Y Combinator “Request for Startups” video, Devtools for AI Agents (published on the Y Combinator YouTube channel, February 2025). The “we” in the video is Y Combinator, an investor looking for startups to fund. It is not JetThoughts. Its view: AI agents, which make decisions on their own, are the next wave after the first two years of AI startups.
The Rise of AI Agents #
The video says Y Combinator funded many startups in the last two years that used AI to disrupt established players. It sees a next wave: agents that go beyond assisting people and can make decisions on their own.
The video ties this to model releases. With o1, and o3 which was still “soon” when the video was made, agents are getting much better at reasoning. Y Combinator’s claim is that they can then replicate, and even improve on, tasks humans perform. That is a forecast. The video does not measure it.
Its picture of the result: every person backed by a team of specialized AI agents working in the background, raising their productivity and creativity.
Building Blocks for AI Agents #
To speed that future up, the video says Y Combinator wants to fund startups that build developer tools for agents. It names two kinds:
- AI Builders: companies that let customers create and deploy custom agents easily. The video’s examples are Wordware and Stack AI.
- Agent Building Blocks: tools, APIs or platforms that make agents more capable. They let agents take more complex actions and have more impact.
Key Takeaways #
- Y Combinator sees agents, which decide and act on their own, as the next wave after AI assistants.
- It ties the shift to better reasoning in models like o1 and o3.
- It wants to fund two kinds of company: agent builders and agent building blocks.
- It is a funding call, so treat the “agents will be everywhere” part as a bet, not a measured trend.
If you are building in this space, the video says Y Combinator would like to hear from you.
