AI Graveyard Expands: Relay Shuts Down as TechCrunch Documents Major AI Failures

Relay, a five-year-old startup, allowed users to automate email and task workflows using AI agents. But it struggled to hold onto a reason to exist as a standalone product after OpenAI, Google, and other larger platforms built similar automation directly into their own tools, the report said.

The report noted that even the biggest players in AI are not immune to failures. OpenAI, one of the most valuable private companies in the world, has had its own share of casualties and missteps. On July 9, OpenAI updated ChatGPT to combine separate "Chat," "Codex," and "Work" modes, renaming the traditional version "ChatGPT Classic." The redesign drew criticism from users who found the new interface confusing and cluttered, and OpenAI rolled back the change soon after. That was not OpenAI's only attempt to consolidate features. The company shut down several standalone apps and folded their features into ChatGPT. ChatGPT Atlas, a standalone AI-powered web browser, lasted less than a year before being discontinued on August 9. OpenAI also did the same with Operator, an AI agent that could browse the web and complete tasks, and it has increasingly built image generation directly into ChatGPT, shrinking the role of DALL-E. Its video-sharing platform Sora, which struggled with high operating costs and user-retention challenges, shut down in March 2026.

Apple's efforts with Siri AI also faced delays. When Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence in 2024, an improved Siri was a highlighted feature. The pitch promised a Siri that could understand context, know what was happening across apps, and get tasks done effectively. However, Apple repeatedly pushed back the release, citing engineering issues and bugs. This delay eventually contributed to a $250 million settlement over claims regarding how Apple marketed the AI capabilities of the iPhone 16. Siri AI finally appeared in the iOS 27 beta this past July, with the new AI-powered version rolling out to English-language users first this month; support for other languages is expected to follow.

Microsoft's Recall feature, announced at its 2024 Build developer conference, was pitched as an AI-powered "photographic memory" for Windows PCs, periodically taking screenshots of what a user was doing so they could later search back through their digital history. The announcement triggered an immediate backlash over privacy and security. Critics argued that Recall could create a searchable archive of highly sensitive information, including passwords, private messages, financial details, and other activity. Microsoft delayed the feature for nearly a year to rethink its security and privacy protections. Even after a redesign, the controversy has not gone away. A cybersecurity researcher recently built a tool that could extract and display data that Recall had captured, reviving questions about whether Microsoft has actually fixed the underlying problem.

Notion Mail launched in April 2025 as an AI-focused email product designed to help users organize and automate their inboxes. However, the company noticed its users were using separate AI agents to handle their email inboxes instead. As a result, Notion Mail is scheduled to shut down on September 22.

The Humane AI Pin is probably one of the most well-known failures in AI hardware. Designed to provide AI features through a wearable device rather than a traditional smartphone, Humane raised $230 million from investors and garnered significant attention. But the product struggled mightily with performance, and the situation worsened when Humane warned customers to stop using its charging case because of a problem.