A company must file for bankruptcy. For years, it had offered AI services that were actually performed by humans. Companies like Microsoft are said to have invested millions in the company.
More and more companies are relying on AI or offering services that utilize AI. However, one company has now been exposed for not providing real AI services but secretly employing hundreds of workers instead. Even Amazon secretly relied on real employees while claiming to use AI.
The London-based company Builder.ai was temporarily valued at 1.5 billion US dollars before it had to file for bankruptcy. This was reported by the English-language magazine Dexerto.
The company’s ‘neural network’ actually consists of 700 human employees
What was the promise? The company Builder.ai claimed that its in-house AI service “Natasha” was able to create applications with artificial intelligence. Natasha promised to create programs in record time – from developing app designs to writing code.
High investments in the company: Reports indicate that Microsoft supported the “neural network” with an investment of 455 million US dollars, leading to a valuation of the AI company between 1.3 and 1.5 billion US dollars. Additionally, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is said to have invested 250 million US dollars.
Other investors are mentioned who reportedly pumped millions into the AI company.
Former employees report: The company never relied on AI
It has now been made public that the money did not go into AI but into around 700 employed workers. A comprehensive report on this is provided by the English-language magazine Binance.com, which also cites several former employees and insiders. They stated: At Builder.ai, only humans and no artificial intelligence may have worked from the very beginning.
Several former employees claimed that it was impossible that management was unaware of the ongoing fraud and simply ignored it.
After working at the company for two years, they saw hardly any finished projects.
According to the English-language magazine Bloomberg, Builder.ai allegedly collaborated with VerSe, a social media startup based in India, to artificially inflate its sales numbers, billing each other regularly similar amounts between 2021 and 2024. However, VerSe has vehemently denied this practice and labeled the accusations as “baseless and false.”
Many employees are worried about their jobs. The Generation Z is also affected by layoffs. However, young people have found an alternative to studying and office jobs: a job in the trades, which is considered crisis-proof: AI is currently destroying jobs, but Generation Z has found a way to protect themselves from it
