The Leaderboard // Mail-order designers

Slidejoy: On-demand presentation design (by a team of humans!). 

I’m glad to see Slidejoy is bucking the trend of throwing AI at everything and opting to instead focus on delivering value through simplicity while tackling the time-consuming, thankless task of creating Powerpoints. It’s a refreshing approach, though I’ll be more interested to see whether they can scale, expand and stay relevant without the automation their competitors rely on to fuel growth.

ApplyAI: AI-powered resume generator. 

ApplyAI claims CVs customized with AI assistance “show a 40% increase in receiving a job offer” and are “3.4 times more likely to catch an employer’s attention.” Which surprises me, since I’d think most savvy recruiters would be able to spot GPT buzzwords from a mile away. The real value prop here (if any) is probably the template generation, not the copy.

Panels.art: Curated wallpapers for Apple and Android phones. 

Marques Brownlee, the tech reviewer famous for his ability to “destroy companies with one review,” launched Panels yesterday. I can’t stop laughing at the irony. An iPhone wallpaper app in the year 2024? Did anyone ask for this? The critic has stepped into the arena — and his performance was laughably weak. A good reminder it’s far easier to critique than build.