December 28th, 2025
All the AI that launched in 2025
This newsletter was brought to you byVantaHappy holidays
gm legends. Itâs the Sunday between Christmas and New Yearâs.
This week: the year in AI; getting DMâd by your tech idol; the best business advice for 2026; and how to get some sleep. Plus: some of the top launches from the past week. So, reheat those leftover mashed potatoes, finish the last of the cider, and enjoy the last weekly newsletter of 2026.
P.S. Launching soon? Weâd love to hear about it â editorial@producthunt.co đŤś
AI year in review
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 wasnât until 2025 that you couldnât 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.Â
AIâs 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.
AIâs monumental year is apparent from the sheer number of AI launches weâve seen at Product Hunt. Of the top 15 launches on Product Hunt, thirteen were tagged âArtificial Intelligenceâ:
- Dreamina: âAll-in-one AI creative suite for all your creative workâ
- MGX: âThe first AI dev teamâ
- Sider 5.0: âMimic human research and save findings in an AI knowledge baseâ
- Tana: âPut your notes to work with voice and AIâ
- Tanka: âAI messenger with smart reply and long-term memory for teamsâ
- TestSprite 1.0: âFirst AI agent automating the entire software testing processâ
- Aha: âThe worldâs first AI influencer marketing teamâ
- Chronicle: âStunning presentations with AI, no design skills requiredâ
- 21st.dev: âGithub + Pinterest to make your AI websites look beautifulâ
- Sagehood: âAI agents for a 360-degree analysis of the U.S. stock marketâ
- Wegic: âYour first AI website teamâ
- PageOn.A! 2.0: âCursor for visual communication, beyond slidesâ
- Basalt: âIntegrate AI in your product in secondsâ
(The remaining two in the top 15, Screen Studio 3.0 and Bubble for native mobile apps, featured meaningful AI integrations.)
And this doesnât include any of the OpenAI launches â 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 doesnât include Claude by Anthropicâs Opus 4.5, which is a heavy-hitter for coding work. Nor does it include Googleâs Gemini 3, which is vying with GPT and Claude for chatbot supremacy. And donât sleep on Grok 4.1, xAIâs December release that doubles down on its very-online voice.
And we didnât even mention Cursor AI, the code editor that achieved Uber and Airbnb status this yearâ as in âCursor for XYZ.â
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, itâs all spending but not yet a lot of revenue.
But given that the internet was also once a bubble, weâre betting that 2026 will see plenty more AI launches. In fact, weâre getting ready to launch some AI-related stuff into, ahem, Orbit ourselves.
Two makers, one dream â 15 years apart
By Zac Zuo (cofounder, Flowtica Scribe)
âI launched my product Flowtica Scribe a few months ago. Like any maker, Iâve been obsessing over metrics, logistics, and production.
âBut yesterday, I received a message on social media that paused everything. It was from Ajit Rajasekharan.
âFor those who don't know, Ajit is a legend in the tech world (currently CTO at nference). Back in 2008, he founded a company called Readia. Backed by giants like John Doerr and Vinod Khosla, they tried to build a smart pen that could help children learn to read and write.
âThey had the vision, but the technology of that eraâdot-printed paper and bulky camerasâbecame a trap. Despite the brilliant team, the hardware limitations and patent walls forced them to shut down.â

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Getting back to business

Nika kicked off a thread asking: If you could send one piece of business advice forward to your 2026 self, what would it be? Her own is about not sleeping on LinkedIn as a place where people actually pay, and replies so far orbit the same themes: do fewer things at once, double down on one channel that already works, talk to more people, build community, and sharpen your critical thinking.Â
Itâs basically a time capsule in progress: drop the one lesson youâd actually want future-you to remember.
Guess the Product Hunt launch

Reviewer Xi.Z of Chance AI had this to say about the app that finished #1 for December last year:Â
âJust wrapped up my first month with [this product] and wow - what a game-changer for my sleep! As someone who's tried countless sleep apps, this one stands out because it feels like having a genuinely caring sleep coach in your pocket. The AI personality is surprisingly engaging without being pushy (looking at you, other wellness apps đ). What really impressed me was how it adapted to my weird work schedule. Instead of rigid rules, [this product] helped me build a realistic evening routine that actually sticks. The scientific backing is solid but presented in a way that doesn't feel like reading a textbook.â
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Every Sunday
Everything you missed this past week on Product Hunt: Top products, spicy community discourse, key trends on the site, and long-form pieces weâve recently published.
