This was the year that AI really took off.
Sure, ChatGPT has already had three birthdays, and Claude and Gemini were both released to the public in 2023. Even Grok is older than it acts.
But it wasnāt until 2025 that you couldnāt scroll for five seconds without running into AI content, AI agents, and long-winded LinkedIn posts about how AI is either a blessing or a curse.
AIās pervasiveness went up and down the stack as developers across all categories integrated AI into everything. Others used vibe coding tools to create new apps.
AIās monumental year is apparent from the sheer number of AI launches weāve seen at Product Hunt. Of the top 15 launches on Product Hunt, thirteen were tagged āArtificial Intelligenceā:
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Dreamina: āAll-in-one AI creative suite for all your creative workā
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MGX: āThe first AI dev teamā
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Sider 5.0: āMimic human research and save findings in an AI knowledge baseā
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Tana: āPut your notes to work with voice and AIā
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Tanka: āAI messenger with smart reply and long-term memory for teamsā
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TestSprite 1.0: āFirst AI agent automating the entire software testing processā
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Aha: āThe worldās first AI influencer marketing teamā
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Chronicle: āStunning presentations with AI, no design skills requiredā
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21st.dev: āGithub + Pinterest to make your AI websites look beautifulā
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Sagehood: āAI agents for a 360-degree analysis of the U.S. stock marketā
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Wegic: āYour first AI website teamā
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PageOn.A! 2.0: āCursor for visual communication, beyond slidesā
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Basalt: āIntegrate AI in your product in secondsā
(The remaining two in the top 15, Screen Studio 3.0 and Bubble for native mobile apps, featured meaningful AI integrations.)
And this doesnāt include any of the OpenAI launches ā including GPT-5, ChatGPT Images, and Sora 2, the latter of which connects to a TikTok-like feed of AI-generated videos created with user prompts. It doesnāt include Claude by Anthropicās Opus 4.5, which is a heavy-hitter for coding work. Nor does it include Googleās Gemini 3, which is vying with GPT and Claude for chatbot supremacy. And donāt sleep on Grok 4.1, xAIās December release that doubles down on its very-online voice.
And we didnāt even mention Cursor AI, the code editor that achieved Uber and Airbnb status this yearā as in āCursor for XYZ.ā
AI is simply where everything is happening.
But 2026 may be a different story. Not to get all apocalyptic, but the latter half of 2025 was populated by tales of an AI bubble, with multibillion-dollar data center deals and $100M salaries and the like being reported every few days. At the LLM level where Google and OpenAI live, itās all spending but not yet a lot of revenue.
But given that the internet was also once a bubble, weāre betting that 2026 will see plenty more AI launches. In fact, weāre getting ready to launch some AI-related stuff into, ahem, Orbit ourselves.