[
  {
    "name": "Google Bard",
    "dateOpen": "2023-03-21",
    "dateClose": "2024-02-08",
    "description": "Google's original answer to ChatGPT. Bard was rushed to market after ChatGPT's viral launch, famously losing Google $100B in market cap after a factual error in its first demo. It was killed and rebranded as Gemini in February 2024.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Rebranding",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://blog.google/products/gemini/bard-gemini-advanced-app/",
    "collateral": "Early Bard conversation history and saved responses were not migrated to Gemini.",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-bard"
  },
  {
    "name": "ChatGPT Plugins",
    "dateOpen": "2023-03-23",
    "dateClose": "2024-04-09",
    "description": "OpenAI's first attempt at an AI app ecosystem. Plugins let ChatGPT browse the web, run code, and connect to third-party services like Expedia and Zapier. Killed in favor of the more controlled GPTs and the custom GPT Store.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Product Evolution",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8988022-winding-down-the-chatgpt-plugins-beta",
    "collateral": "Developers who built and monetized plugins lost their distribution channel. User workflows built around specific plugins broke.",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "chatgpt-plugins"
  },
  {
    "name": "Meta Galactica",
    "dateOpen": "2022-11-15",
    "dateClose": "2022-11-18",
    "description": "Meta's large language model for scientific research. Taken offline just 3 days after launch due to generating convincing but completely fabricated scientific papers, fake citations, and biased content. One of the shortest-lived AI products ever.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Public Backlash",
    "killedBy": "Meta",
    "link": "https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/18/1063487/meta-large-language-model-ai-only-survived-three-days-galactica-science/",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "meta-galactica"
  },
  {
    "name": "Microsoft Cortana",
    "dateOpen": "2014-04-02",
    "dateClose": "2023-12-31",
    "description": "Microsoft's Siri competitor and virtual assistant, named after the Halo AI character. After years of declining relevance against Alexa and Siri, Cortana was killed in Windows and mobile as Microsoft pivoted fully to Copilot and GPT-powered assistants.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Replaced by AI",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft Copilot",
    "link": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/end-of-support-for-cortana-in-windows-and-teams-d025b39f-ee5b-4836-a954-0ab646ee1efa",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "microsoft-cortana"
  },
  {
    "name": "IBM Watson Marketing",
    "dateOpen": "2014-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2022-06-30",
    "description": "IBM's flagship AI marketing platform, once hyped as the future of enterprise AI. Despite billions in investment, Watson failed to deliver on its promises. IBM sold off Watson Health and wound down its marketing suite with little fanfare as generative AI made it obsolete.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Commercial Failure",
    "killedBy": "IBM",
    "link": "https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/21/22894386/ibm-watson-health-sale-francisco-partners",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "ibm-watson-marketing"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI Codex API",
    "dateOpen": "2021-08-10",
    "dateClose": "2023-03-23",
    "description": "The dedicated code-generation model behind GitHub Copilot's early versions. Deprecated as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 proved capable enough at code generation to make a separate model unnecessary.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
    "collateral": "Developers who built code-generation tools on Codex had to rewrite their entire integration layer.",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "openai-codex-api"
  },
  {
    "name": "GPT-3 (Original Models)",
    "dateOpen": "2020-06-11",
    "dateClose": "2024-01-04",
    "description": "The original GPT-3 family (davinci, curie, babbage, and ada) that kicked off the generative AI revolution. These base models were fully retired as the Turbo and Instruct variants made them redundant.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "gpt-3-original-models"
  },
  {
    "name": "Inflection AI / Pi",
    "dateOpen": "2023-05-02",
    "dateClose": "2024-03-19",
    "description": "A 'personal AI' focused on emotional intelligence and empathy, backed by $1.5B in funding. Effectively killed when Microsoft hired CEO Mustafa Suleyman and most of the engineering team, leaving Pi as an orphaned product.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "link": "https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/19/24105263/microsoft-inflection-mustafa-suleyman-hire",
    "collateral": "Users who spent months building a personal relationship with Pi lost all conversation history and emotional context when the team left.",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "fundingM": 1500,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "seo": {
      "title": "What Happened to Inflection AI and Pi? (Acqui-hired 2024)",
      "description": "What happened to Inflection AI: Microsoft hired its CEO and most of the team in March 2024, leaving the $1.5B-funded Pi chatbot orphaned. Timeline and aftermath."
    },
    "slug": "inflection-ai-pi"
  },
  {
    "name": "Humane AI Pin",
    "dateOpen": "2024-04-11",
    "dateClose": "2025-05-01",
    "description": "The $699 screenless AI wearable that was supposed to replace smartphones. Plagued by overheating, terrible battery life, and painfully slow responses. Humane sought a buyer after disastrous reviews and abysmal sales.",
    "type": "hardware",
    "causeOfDeath": "Market Rejection",
    "killedBy": "Reality",
    "link": "https://www.theverge.com/24126502/humane-ai-pin-review",
    "collateral": "All $699 devices were remotely bricked when cloud services shut down. No refunds offered.",
    "deathType": "hardware-failed",
    "fundingM": 230,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "seo": {
      "title": "Humane AI Pin Discontinued: What Happened to the AI Pin",
      "description": "The Humane AI Pin was discontinued and every $699 device remotely bricked on February 28, 2025, ten months after launch. The full story of the shutdown."
    },
    "slug": "humane-ai-pin"
  },
  {
    "name": "Rabbit R1",
    "dateOpen": "2024-04-24",
    "dateClose": "2025-03-01",
    "description": "A $199 'AI-native' gadget designed to replace apps with a 'Large Action Model.' Widely panned as a repackaged Android app with a $199 price tag. The hardware was all but abandoned after the company pivoted to software-only.",
    "type": "hardware",
    "causeOfDeath": "Market Rejection",
    "killedBy": "Reality",
    "link": "https://www.theverge.com/24133200/rabbit-r1-review-ai-gadget",
    "collateral": "Buyers stuck with a $199 paperweight. No meaningful resale value.",
    "deathType": "hardware-failed",
    "fundingM": 30,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "seo": {
      "title": "Rabbit R1 Discontinued? What Happened to the R1 Device",
      "description": "Is the Rabbit R1 dead? Launch date, the shutdown, what the $199 device did in practice, and what happened to the company behind it."
    },
    "slug": "rabbit-r1"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Duplex on the Web",
    "dateOpen": "2019-11-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-03-01",
    "description": "Google's AI that could navigate websites and complete tasks for you, like buying movie tickets or checking into flights. Shelved with little publicity as Google moved its automation focus to Gemini-powered agents.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategic Pivot",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://9to5google.com/2024/03/01/google-duplex-web-dead/",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-duplex-on-the-web"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI /v1/edits Endpoint",
    "dateOpen": "2022-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-01-04",
    "description": "A specialized API endpoint for editing text by providing instructions ('make this more formal'). Deprecated as the Chat Completions API proved more flexible and capable at handling edit-style tasks.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "API Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "openai-v1-edits-endpoint"
  },
  {
    "name": "DALL·E 2",
    "dateOpen": "2022-04-06",
    "dateClose": "2025-02-03",
    "description": "OpenAI's second-generation image model that made AI art widely available. Once revolutionary, it was deprecated from the API as DALL·E 3 (integrated directly into ChatGPT) made the standalone model obsolete.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
    "collateral": "Apps built on the DALL-E 2 API had to migrate to a completely different image generation interface.",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "dall-e-2"
  },
  {
    "name": "Character.AI (Independent)",
    "dateOpen": "2022-09-16",
    "dateClose": "2024-08-02",
    "description": "The viral AI chatbot platform where users created and talked to AI 'characters.' After safety controversies and intense competition, Google effectively acqui-hired the founders and key staff, leaving the company a shell of its former self.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/2/24212348/google-character-ai-noam-shazeer",
    "collateral": "Users lost unique AI personalities they had spent hundreds of hours training and conversing with.",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "fundingM": 150,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "character-ai-independent"
  },
  {
    "name": "Amazon Alexa (Original AI)",
    "dateOpen": "2014-11-06",
    "dateClose": "2024-09-01",
    "description": "The original Alexa voice assistant that pioneered smart speakers. After losing over $25 billion, Amazon pivoted Alexa to a new LLM-powered version behind a paywall ('Alexa Plus'), effectively killing the free AI assistant millions relied on.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Financial Losses",
    "killedBy": "Amazon",
    "link": "https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/amazon-has-lost-over-25-billion-on-alexa-other-devices-report-says/",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "amazon-alexa-original-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "Stability AI (Stable Diffusion Creator)",
    "dateOpen": "2020-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-06-01",
    "description": "The company behind Stable Diffusion, the open-source model that opened up AI image generation to the public. After CEO Emad Mostaque resigned amid financial turmoil and copyright lawsuits, the company struggled to survive as a going concern.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Financial Collapse",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "link": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2024/03/29/stability-ai-ceo-emad-mostaque-resigns/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 101,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "stability-ai-stable-diffusion-creator"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google AI Test Kitchen",
    "dateOpen": "2022-05-11",
    "dateClose": "2023-12-01",
    "description": "Google's experimental app for testing unreleased AI models like LaMDA and PaLM. Discontinued without a big announcement as Google moved all AI demos to the Gemini app and API.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Product Evolution",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://aitestkitchen.withgoogle.com/",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-ai-test-kitchen"
  },
  {
    "name": "Bing Chat",
    "dateOpen": "2023-02-07",
    "dateClose": "2023-11-15",
    "description": "Microsoft's GPT-4-powered Bing chatbot that briefly made Bing relevant for the first time in a decade. Rebranded to 'Microsoft Copilot' as part of a broader push to embed AI across all Microsoft products.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Rebranding",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "link": "https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/11/15/introducing-microsoft-copilot-studio-and-new-features-for-copilot-in-microsoft-365/",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "bing-chat"
  },
  {
    "name": "ChatPDF / PDF Chat Wrappers",
    "dateOpen": "2023-03-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-05-01",
    "description": "An entire category of startups (ChatPDF, PDF.ai, AskYourPDF) built around 'chat with your documents.' Most became obsolete overnight when OpenAI, Google, and Claude added native file upload and analysis.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI / Google / Anthropic",
    "link": "https://openai.com/index/improvements-to-data-analysis-in-chatgpt/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "chatpdf-pdf-chat-wrappers"
  },
  {
    "name": "Cohere Generate (Original)",
    "dateOpen": "2021-11-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-06-01",
    "description": "Cohere's original text generation endpoint. Deprecated in favor of the Chat endpoint and Command R models as the industry moved from 'completion' to 'conversation' interfaces.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "API Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "Cohere",
    "link": "https://docs.cohere.com/docs/migrating-from-cogenerate-to-cochat",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "cohere-generate-original"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Gemini 1.0 Pro",
    "dateOpen": "2023-12-06",
    "dateClose": "2025-02-15",
    "description": "Google's first Gemini model. Deprecated barely a year after launch as the rapid pace of AI development made it obsolete. Replaced by Gemini 1.5 Pro and then Gemini 2.0.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/deprecation",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-gemini-1-0-pro"
  },
  {
    "name": "Neeva",
    "dateOpen": "2019-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2023-05-20",
    "description": "An ad-free, AI-based search engine founded by ex-Google executives. Despite raising $77.5M, it couldn't compete with free alternatives. Acquired by Snowflake for its AI talent, and the search engine was shut down.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "Snowflake",
    "link": "https://neeva.com/blog/may-announcement",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "fundingM": 77.5,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "neeva"
  },
  {
    "name": "Jasper AI (Original Platform)",
    "dateOpen": "2021-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-06-01",
    "description": "One of the first AI writing unicorns, valued at $1.5B. Jasper's 'wrapper' business model collapsed as GPT-4o and Claude made its core features available for free or at a fraction of the cost.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Parity",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI / Anthropic",
    "link": "https://www.jasper.ai/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 125,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "jasper-ai-original-platform"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo",
    "dateOpen": "2022-11-30",
    "dateClose": "2024-09-13",
    "description": "The engine behind the original ChatGPT and the model that started it all. Its first API snapshots (gpt-3.5-turbo-0301, -0613 and -16k-0613) were shut down on September 13, 2024, and gpt-3.5-turbo-1106 followed on September 28, 2026. The last one, gpt-3.5-turbo-0125, still answers to the bare gpt-3.5-turbo name and is scheduled to die on October 23, 2026, along with the fine-tunes built on it.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "openai-gpt-3-5-turbo"
  },
  {
    "name": "Samsung Gauss",
    "dateOpen": "2023-11-08",
    "dateClose": "2024-06-01",
    "description": "Samsung's in-house generative AI model announced at Samsung AI Forum. Shelved without much noise in favor of partnering with Google Gemini for Galaxy AI features, as building a competitive foundation model proved too costly.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategic Pivot",
    "killedBy": "Samsung",
    "link": "https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-introduces-samsung-gauss",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "samsung-gauss"
  },
  {
    "name": "Writer (GPT Wrapper Era)",
    "dateOpen": "2020-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-01-01",
    "description": "Originally an AI writing assistant for enterprises built on GPT. Pivoted multiple times as the 'wrapper' model died, eventually trying to become a full AI platform. Struggled as enterprises adopted native Copilot and Gemini integrations.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft Copilot",
    "link": "https://writer.com/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 100,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "writer-gpt-wrapper-era"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Assistant (Classic)",
    "dateOpen": "2016-05-18",
    "dateClose": "2025-01-01",
    "description": "Google's original AI assistant that lived in phones, speakers, and smart displays. After years of declining investment, Google began replacing it with Gemini-powered assistants, and the classic version was left to fade away without ceremony.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Replaced by AI",
    "killedBy": "Google Gemini",
    "link": "https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-update-gemini/",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-assistant-classic"
  },
  {
    "name": "Siri (Classic)",
    "dateOpen": "2011-10-14",
    "dateClose": "2025-06-01",
    "description": "Apple's voice assistant, the early mover that defined the category. After over a decade of stagnation, Apple announced a full Siri rewrite powered by Apple Intelligence LLMs, effectively killing the original system.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Replaced by AI",
    "killedBy": "Apple Intelligence",
    "link": "https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/",
    "collateral": "A decade of 'Hey Siri' muscle memory and custom Shortcuts workflows being rebuilt from scratch for Apple Intelligence.",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "siri-classic"
  },
  {
    "name": "Midjourney Free Tier",
    "dateOpen": "2022-07-12",
    "dateClose": "2023-03-30",
    "description": "Midjourney's free trial that let anyone generate 25 images. Killed after viral abuse and deepfake scandals (including a fake Pope photo), forcing the company to go paid-only permanently.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Abuse Prevention",
    "killedBy": "Midjourney",
    "link": "https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/30/23662940/midjourney-free-trial-ai-image-generation-halted",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "midjourney-free-tier"
  },
  {
    "name": "GitHub Copilot X",
    "dateOpen": "2023-03-22",
    "dateClose": "2024-01-01",
    "description": "GitHub's ambitious 'next vision' for AI coding that promised voice control, pull request summaries, and CLI integration. Many of the announced features were dropped without fanfare or absorbed into standard Copilot.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Overpromised",
    "killedBy": "GitHub",
    "link": "https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/github-copilot-x-the-ai-powered-developer-experience/",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "github-copilot-x"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI Sora",
    "dateOpen": "2024-12-09",
    "dateClose": "2026-04-26",
    "description": "OpenAI's text-to-video model and standalone app. The Sora web and app were shut down on April 26, 2026, and the API followed on September 24. Peaked at ~1M users before collapsing to under 500K while burning ~$1M/day. OpenAI freed the compute for its coding and enterprise products, and the $1B Disney deal collapsed.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Unsustainable Costs",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001152-what-to-know-about-the-sora-discontinuation",
    "collateral": "Users mid-project lost access to all generated videos. Creators who built audiences on the platform lost their portfolios overnight.",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "seo": {
      "title": "Sora AI Shutdown: Why OpenAI Killed Sora (April 2026)",
      "description": "The Sora AI shutdown, explained: OpenAI killed the Sora app on April 26, 2026 and the API followed on September 24. Timeline, why it died, what users lost, and what replaced it.",
      "h1": "Sora AI Shutdown"
    },
    "slug": "openai-sora",
    "timeline": [
      {
        "date": "2024-12-09",
        "text": "Sora launches to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers as a text-to-video model inside a web app."
      },
      {
        "date": "2025-09-30",
        "text": "Sora 2 ships with a standalone app; downloads spike and the service briefly passes 1 million users."
      },
      {
        "date": "2026-03-24",
        "text": "OpenAI publishes the discontinuation notice: the app will close in April, the API in September. Monthly active users are under 500,000 and compute costs are running at roughly $1 million a day."
      },
      {
        "date": "2026-04-26",
        "text": "The Sora web app and mobile app are shut down. Generated videos not exported beforehand become inaccessible."
      },
      {
        "date": "2026-09-24",
        "text": "The Sora API endpoint is switched off. Video generation at OpenAI ends entirely."
      }
    ],
    "replacement": "None. OpenAI points former Sora users to image generation inside ChatGPT; it has not announced a successor video model. Compute freed by the shutdown was redirected to coding and enterprise products.",
    "aftermath": "The shutdown followed the collapse of a reported $1 billion content deal with Disney and a user base that fell from a ~1M peak to under 500K. Sora had been the most-hyped consumer launch in OpenAI's history sixteen months earlier. Sora 2 lives on for a few more weeks in one place: Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service, where it is scheduled to retire on October 15, 2026.",
    "faq": [
      {
        "q": "Is Sora shut down?",
        "a": "Yes. The Sora app and website were shut down on April 26, 2026, and the Sora API was switched off on September 24, 2026. OpenAI no longer offers video generation; the last place Sora 2 runs is Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service, until October 15."
      },
      {
        "q": "When did the Sora API shut down?",
        "a": "September 24, 2026, six months after the March 24 discontinuation notice. Sora 2 on Azure OpenAI follows on October 15."
      },
      {
        "q": "Why did OpenAI shut down Sora?",
        "a": "Cost and usage. OpenAI cited compute costs of about $1 million a day against fewer than 500,000 monthly users, and chose to redirect that capacity to its coding and enterprise products. A $1 billion Disney content deal had also fallen through."
      },
      {
        "q": "Can I still download my Sora videos?",
        "a": "Not from OpenAI. Videos that were not exported before April 26, 2026 are no longer accessible; creators who built audiences on the platform lost their portfolios."
      },
      {
        "q": "What replaced Sora?",
        "a": "Nothing directly. OpenAI recommends image generation in ChatGPT and has not announced a replacement video model. Competing video models from Google, Runway, Kling and others remain available."
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Doppl",
    "dateOpen": "2025-06-26",
    "dateClose": "2026-04-30",
    "description": "Google Labs' AI-based virtual try-on app that let users see how clothes would look on their avatar. Made TIME's Best Inventions of 2025 list, then killed less than a year later as the feature was absorbed into Google Shopping search results.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://jetstream.blog/en/google-doppl-shut-down-end-of-april-2026/",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-doppl"
  },
  {
    "name": "Microsoft Tay",
    "dateOpen": "2016-03-23",
    "dateClose": "2016-03-24",
    "description": "Microsoft's teen-persona AI chatbot on Twitter. Within 16 hours of launch, coordinated trolls taught it to tweet racist slurs, Nazi propaganda, and hate speech. Microsoft pulled the plug after just 96,000 tweets, in one of AI's most infamous disasters.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Public Backlash",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot)",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "microsoft-tay"
  },
  {
    "name": "Meta BlenderBot 3",
    "dateOpen": "2022-08-05",
    "dateClose": "2023-06-01",
    "description": "Meta's open-domain chatbot that was supposed to show off conversational AI research. Instead, it called Mark Zuckerberg 'creepy,' claimed Trump won the 2020 election, and accused Facebook of exploiting people. Taken offline without much said about it.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Public Embarrassment",
    "killedBy": "Meta",
    "link": "https://about.fb.com/news/2022/08/blenderbot-ai-chatbot/",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "meta-blenderbot-3"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google PaLM API",
    "dateOpen": "2023-03-14",
    "dateClose": "2024-08-15",
    "description": "Google's first major LLM API offering the text-bison, chat-bison, and embedding-gecko models. Fully decommissioned as Google consolidated everything under the Gemini API brand, leaving early PaLM adopters scrambling to migrate.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Google Gemini",
    "link": "https://ai.google.dev/palm_docs/deprecation",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-palm-api"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude 1",
    "dateOpen": "2023-03-14",
    "dateClose": "2024-11-06",
    "description": "Anthropic's first commercially available LLM. Deprecated in September 2024 and fully retired two months later as Claude 3 and later models vastly outperformed it in every benchmark.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/about-claude/model-deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "claude-1"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude 2",
    "dateOpen": "2023-07-11",
    "dateClose": "2025-07-21",
    "description": "Anthropic's second-generation model that introduced 100K context windows. Deprecated in January 2025 and retired six months later, replaced by the Claude 3 family with superior reasoning and multilingual capabilities.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/about-claude/model-deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "claude-2"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude 3 Sonnet",
    "dateOpen": "2024-03-04",
    "dateClose": "2025-07-21",
    "description": "The mid-tier model of Anthropic's Claude 3 family, offering a balance of speed and intelligence. Retired alongside Claude 2 as the Claude 3.5 and 4 series provided better performance at the same cost.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/about-claude/model-deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "claude-3-sonnet"
  },
  {
    "name": "Builder.ai",
    "dateOpen": "2016-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-05-20",
    "description": "Microsoft-backed 'AI app builder' valued at $1.5B. Its 'neural network' turned out to be 700 engineers in India writing code manually. After inflating revenue 300% ($55M real vs $220M claimed), a creditor seized $37M from its accounts, triggering bankruptcy across five countries.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Fraud & Bankruptcy",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/20/once-worth-over-1b-microsoft-backed-builder-ai-is-running-out-of-money/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 445,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "builder-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "McDonald's AI Drive-Thru (IBM)",
    "dateOpen": "2021-06-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-07-26",
    "description": "IBM's AI voice ordering system tested in 100+ McDonald's drive-thrus. Went viral for all the wrong reasons: ordering 260 Chicken McNuggets, adding random items, and failing to understand accents. Accuracy stuck in the low 80% range before McDonald's pulled the plug.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Technical Failure",
    "killedBy": "McDonald's",
    "link": "https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/17/mcdonalds-to-end-ibm-ai-drive-thru-test.html",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "mcdonald-s-ai-drive-thru-ibm"
  },
  {
    "name": "Yara AI",
    "dateOpen": "2024-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-11-28",
    "description": "UK-based AI mental health companion offering CBT-style exercises and conversational support. In a rare case of ethical self-termination, the founder voluntarily shut it down after deciding AI chatbots aren't safe enough for people in real mental health crises.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Safety Concerns",
    "killedBy": "Its Own Founder",
    "link": "https://fortune.com/2025/11/28/yara-ai-therapy-app-founder-shut-down-startup-decided-too-dangerous-serious-mental-health-issues/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 2,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "yara-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "Tune AI",
    "dateOpen": "2018-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-06-01",
    "description": "Backed by Accel and Flipkart, this GenAI platform offered LLM fine-tuning tools via Tune Chat and Tune Studio. Killed when major cloud providers released identical tooling at lower cost, and most users were free developers who never converted to paying customers.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "AWS / Google / Azure",
    "link": "https://techstartups.com/2025/12/09/top-ai-startups-that-shut-down-in-2025-what-founders-can-learn/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 20,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "tune-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "NYC MyCity Chatbot",
    "dateOpen": "2024-10-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-12-01",
    "description": "New York City's AI chatbot meant to help residents with business and housing info. Instead, it told business owners they could legally steal workers' tips, fire employees who report sexual harassment, and serve food nibbled by rodents. Taken down after public outrage.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Dangerous Misinformation",
    "killedBy": "NYC Government",
    "link": "https://www.cio.com/article/190888/5-famous-analytics-and-ai-disasters.html",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "nyc-mycity-chatbot"
  },
  {
    "name": "Adobe Animate",
    "dateOpen": "1996-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-03-01",
    "description": "Originally Macromedia Flash, then Adobe Flash Professional, then Adobe Animate. After 30 years, Adobe announced it would kill the app to refocus on AI tools. Intense backlash forced a reversal: Adobe put it on 'maintenance mode' instead, but no new features will be developed.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "AI Pivot (Reversed)",
    "killedBy": "Adobe",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/02/adobe-animate-is-shutting-down-as-company-focuses-on-ai/",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "adobe-animate"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude 3.5 Sonnet",
    "dateOpen": "2024-06-20",
    "dateClose": "2025-10-28",
    "description": "Anthropic's breakout model that briefly topped every benchmark and became the most popular coding AI. Retired just 16 months after launch as Claude Sonnet 4 took its place, a sign of the breakneck pace of AI model evolution.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/about-claude/model-deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "claude-3-5-sonnet"
  },
  {
    "name": "GPT-4 (Original)",
    "dateOpen": "2023-03-14",
    "dateClose": "2024-06-13",
    "description": "OpenAI's multimodal model that set new benchmarks across every task. The original GPT-4 and GPT-4-32k endpoints were deprecated just 15 months after launch as GPT-4 Turbo and GPT-4o offered the same capabilities at a fraction of the cost.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "seo": {
      "title": "GPT-4 Deprecation: When OpenAI Retired the Original GPT-4",
      "description": "The original GPT-4 was retired from ChatGPT on April 30, 2025, and its API model IDs follow on October 23, 2026. Every GPT-4 deprecation date in one place."
    },
    "slug": "gpt-4-original"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI GPT Store",
    "dateOpen": "2024-01-10",
    "dateClose": "2025-03-01",
    "description": "OpenAI's marketplace for custom GPTs, launched as the 'App Store moment' for AI. Revenue sharing never materialized, discovery was broken, and most GPTs saw near-zero usage while OpenAI let the store drift down its priority list and focused on API and enterprise products. The GPTs it was built to sell are themselves scheduled for retirement on December 11, 2026.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Low Adoption",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://openai.com/index/introducing-the-gpt-store/",
    "collateral": "Creators who built and marketed custom GPTs saw their work become undiscoverable. Revenue sharing never materialized.",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "openai-gpt-store"
  },
  {
    "name": "Replika (Romantic Mode)",
    "dateOpen": "2017-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2023-02-01",
    "description": "Replika's 'romantic partner' feature let users form intimate relationships with their AI companion. After Italian regulators banned it over child safety concerns, Replika stripped romantic features overnight. Millions of users who had formed deep emotional bonds were devastated.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Regulatory Action",
    "killedBy": "Italian Data Protection Authority",
    "link": "https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/15/23601875/replika-ai-erp-sexual-content-update-blocked",
    "collateral": "Millions of users lost intimate AI companions overnight. Some reported genuine grief and emotional distress.",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "replika-romantic-mode"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Gemini 1.0 Ultra",
    "dateOpen": "2024-02-08",
    "dateClose": "2025-02-15",
    "description": "Google's most powerful first-gen Gemini model, launched as Bard's replacement. Deprecated alongside Gemini 1.0 Pro after just one year as the 1.5 and 2.0 series made it obsolete at a fraction of the compute cost.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/deprecation",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-gemini-1-0-ultra"
  },
  {
    "name": "Copilot GPT Builder",
    "dateOpen": "2023-12-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-07-10",
    "description": "Microsoft's tool for creating custom Copilot GPTs, announced as part of the Copilot Pro subscription. Killed less than 7 months after launch with no replacement, leaving subscribers who had built custom GPTs stranded.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Product Pivot",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "link": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/copilot-gpt-builder-is-no-longer-available-e917c498-1dea-43d2-bf12-7bc091845a5f",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "copilot-gpt-builder"
  },
  {
    "name": "GPT-4o (ChatGPT)",
    "dateOpen": "2024-05-13",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-13",
    "description": "OpenAI's 'omni' multimodal model that processed text, audio, image, and video. Despite becoming the most-used AI model globally, it was retired from ChatGPT after GPT-5 captured nearly all usage. The retirement sparked emotional backlash from ~800K daily users who had formed attachments to the model's personality.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://openai.com/index/retiring-gpt-4o-and-older-models/",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "seo": {
      "title": "GPT-4o Deprecated: When OpenAI Retired GPT-4o From ChatGPT",
      "description": "GPT-4o was retired from ChatGPT on February 13, 2026, after a user backlash the first time OpenAI tried. Deprecation date, what replaced it, and what users lost."
    },
    "slug": "gpt-4o-chatgpt"
  },
  {
    "name": "GPT-4.5 Preview",
    "dateOpen": "2025-02-27",
    "dateClose": "2025-07-14",
    "description": "OpenAI's most expensive model ever at $75 per million input tokens, codenamed 'Orion.' Deprecated just four months after launch (the shortest-lived model in OpenAI's commercial history) as GPT-4.1 offered similar performance at a fraction of the cost.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://community.openai.com/t/gpt-4-5-preview-model-will-be-removed-from-the-api-on-2025-07-14/1230050",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "gpt-4-5-preview"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI o1-preview",
    "dateOpen": "2024-09-12",
    "dateClose": "2025-07-28",
    "description": "OpenAI's first 'reasoning' model that could think step-by-step before answering, achieving PhD-level performance on science benchmarks. The preview version was deprecated in favor of the full o1 and later o3 models as OpenAI rapidly iterated on its reasoning architecture.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "openai-o1-preview"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI o1-mini",
    "dateOpen": "2024-09-12",
    "dateClose": "2025-10-27",
    "description": "A smaller, faster, cheaper version of OpenAI's o1 reasoning model designed for coding and STEM tasks. Deprecated and replaced by o4-mini, which offered better reasoning at lower cost.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "openai-o1-mini"
  },
  {
    "name": "GPT-4 Vision Preview",
    "dateOpen": "2023-11-06",
    "dateClose": "2024-12-06",
    "description": "OpenAI's first multimodal endpoint that could analyze images alongside text. Deprecated as GPT-4o rolled vision capabilities into a single, faster, and cheaper package, eliminating the need for a separate vision-specific endpoint.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "gpt-4-vision-preview"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude 3 Opus",
    "dateOpen": "2024-03-04",
    "dateClose": "2026-01-05",
    "description": "Anthropic's most powerful Claude 3 model, praised for creative writing and deep analysis. Deprecated on June 30, 2025, nearly 16 months after launch, as Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperformed it at a fraction of the cost, and retired from the Claude API on January 5, 2026. Anthropic gave the retired model its own Substack, Claude's Corner, and kept limited access for paid claude.ai users and API customers on request.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://www.anthropic.com/research/deprecation-updates-opus-3",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "seo": {
      "title": "Claude 3 Opus Deprecated: Retirement Date and Replacement",
      "description": "Claude 3 Opus was retired from the Claude API on January 5, 2026. The deprecation timeline, the recommended replacement, and why Anthropic preserved the weights."
    },
    "slug": "claude-3-opus"
  },
  {
    "name": "Olive AI",
    "dateOpen": "2017-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2023-10-31",
    "description": "A healthcare AI startup once valued at $4 billion that promised to automate hospital admin tasks. Despite raising $902M, investigations revealed its 'AI' relied heavily on manual human labor behind the scenes. After mass layoffs, it shut down and sold its assets for a fraction of its valuation.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Financial Collapse",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "link": "https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/olive-ai-shuts-down/698455/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 902,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "olive-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "Moxie Robot",
    "dateOpen": "2020-09-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-12-01",
    "description": "An $800 AI social robot designed to help children develop emotional skills, particularly popular with autistic kids. When funding collapsed, the company shut down abruptly, which bricked all devices and left heartbroken children saying goodbye to their companion on camera. No refunds were offered.",
    "type": "hardware",
    "causeOfDeath": "Funding Collapse",
    "killedBy": "Embodied Inc.",
    "link": "https://www.axios.com/2024/12/10/moxie-kids-robot-shuts-down",
    "collateral": "Children with autism who had formed bonds with their $800 companion lost it overnight. Families recorded tearful goodbyes.",
    "deathType": "hardware-failed",
    "fundingM": 54,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "moxie-robot"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Gemini Image Generation (People)",
    "dateOpen": "2024-02-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-02-22",
    "description": "Gemini's image generation feature for people, killed just 3 weeks after launch. It generated historically inaccurate images like racially diverse Nazi soldiers and Black U.S. Founding Fathers, wiping 3.5% off Alphabet's stock. Google CEO Sundar Pichai called the outputs 'completely unacceptable.'",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Public Backlash",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://blog.google/products/gemini/gemini-image-generation-issue/",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-gemini-image-generation-people"
  },
  {
    "name": "Adept AI (Independent)",
    "dateOpen": "2022-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-06-28",
    "description": "An AI startup building autonomous agents that could use software tools, valued at $1B with $415M raised. Amazon hired 80% of the team including the CEO and co-founders in a 'reverse acqui-hire' that drew FTC scrutiny as a pattern of Big Tech absorbing AI startups without triggering antitrust review.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "Amazon",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/28/amazon-hires-founders-away-from-ai-startup-adept/",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "fundingM": 415,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "adept-ai-independent"
  },
  {
    "name": "Limitless Pendant (Rewind AI)",
    "dateOpen": "2024-05-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-12-05",
    "description": "A $99 AI wearable pendant that recorded and transcribed in-person conversations, previously known as Rewind. Meta acquired the company and immediately ended hardware sales, sunset the desktop app, and cut off EU/UK service entirely due to GDPR concerns.",
    "type": "hardware",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acquisition",
    "killedBy": "Meta",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/05/meta-acquires-ai-device-startup-limitless/",
    "deathType": "hardware-failed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "limitless-pendant-rewind-ai",
    "fundingM": 33
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Jamboard",
    "dateOpen": "2016-10-25",
    "dateClose": "2024-12-31",
    "description": "Google's $5,000 AI-based collaborative digital whiteboard for enterprise. After remote work made the physical hardware irrelevant and software alternatives like FigJam and Miro overtook it on features, Google killed it and deleted all user data after the shutdown date.",
    "type": "hardware",
    "causeOfDeath": "Market Irrelevance",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://support.google.com/jamboard/answer/14084927",
    "collateral": "All collaborative whiteboard data was permanently deleted after the shutdown date. No export path for some content.",
    "deathType": "hardware-failed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "google-jamboard"
  },
  {
    "name": "Woebot",
    "dateOpen": "2017-06-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-06-30",
    "description": "An early AI therapy chatbot used by 1.5 million people that delivered cognitive behavioral therapy via smartphone. Despite FDA Breakthrough Device designation, the company shut down because the regulatory process for AI mental health tools proved too costly and slow as LLMs outpaced the FDA's ability to regulate them.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Regulatory Barriers",
    "killedBy": "FDA",
    "link": "https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/02/woebot-therapy-chatbot-shuts-down-founder-says-ai-moving-faster-than-regulators/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 114,
    "dateAdded": "2026-03-26",
    "slug": "woebot"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Interview Warmup",
    "dateOpen": "2022-06-09",
    "dateClose": "2026-04-01",
    "description": "Google's free AI interview practice tool that helped millions of job seekers rehearse common interview questions with real-time transcription and ML-based analysis. Killed in April 2026 with no announcement: visitors clicking 'Get Started' are silently redirected to a generic 'How to Prepare for an Interview' article.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Silent Shutdown",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://www.finalroundai.com/blog/google-interview-warmup-discontinued-alternatives",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "google-interview-warmup"
  },
  {
    "name": "Qwen Code Free Tier",
    "dateOpen": "2024-09-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-04-15",
    "description": "Alibaba's terminal coding agent, a direct Claude Code rival running Qwen3-Coder models with competitive SWE-Bench scores. The free OAuth tier was killed 48 hours after MiniMax made the same move, as Chinese AI labs pivot from 'free for growth' to subscription economics. Daily free requests slashed from 1,000 to 100.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Monetization Pivot",
    "killedBy": "Alibaba",
    "link": "https://decrypt.co/364501/alibaba-shuts-down-free-tier-qwen-code",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "qwen-code-free-tier"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI for Science",
    "dateOpen": "2025-05-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-04-17",
    "description": "OpenAI's research initiative to apply frontier models to scientific discovery in biology, physics, and materials science. Dismantled alongside Sora as OpenAI shed 'side quests' to refocus compute on coding and enterprise products. Announced the same day product chief Kevin Weil and Sora head Bill Peebles departed.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategic Pivot",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/17/kevin-weil-and-bill-peebles-exit-openai-as-company-continues-to-shed-side-quests/",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "openai-for-science"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Gemini 2.0 Flash",
    "dateOpen": "2024-12-11",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-05",
    "description": "Google's fast, low-cost multimodal model introduced as the next generation after Gemini 1.5. Deprecated just 14 months after launch as the 2.5 family (Pro, Flash, Flash Lite) took its place, in line with Google's pattern of aggressive model refresh cycles.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "google-gemini-2-0-flash"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Gemini 3 Pro Preview",
    "dateOpen": "2025-11-18",
    "dateClose": "2026-03-09",
    "description": "Google's flagship Gemini 3 preview release. Lived just 111 days before being replaced by Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, one of the shortest-lived frontier model releases. The word 'preview' is now shorthand for 'expect to migrate in three months.'",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://discuss.ai.google.dev/t/migrate-from-gemini-3-pro-preview-to-gemini-3-1-pro-preview-before-march-9-2026/127062",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "google-gemini-3-pro-preview"
  },
  {
    "name": "GPT-4o (chatgpt-4o-latest API)",
    "dateOpen": "2024-08-15",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-17",
    "description": "chatgpt-4o-latest, the API alias that tracked whichever GPT-4o ChatGPT was running, was removed from the API on February 17, 2026, four days after GPT-4o left ChatGPT; OpenAI pointed developers to gpt-5.1-chat-latest. The dated snapshots outlived it: gpt-4o-2024-05-13 is scheduled for October 23, 2026 and gpt-4o-2024-08-06 has no OpenAI shutdown date at all. GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini and o4-mini left ChatGPT in the same wave but stayed in the API. 4o became the most-mourned model in AI history, with users petitioning for its return.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "gpt-4o-api-snapshots",
    "aliases": [
      "gpt-4o-api-2024-05-13-2024-08-06"
    ]
  },
  {
    "name": "gpt-4o-realtime-preview",
    "dateOpen": "2024-10-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-03-26",
    "description": "OpenAI's low-latency speech-to-speech API that powered the viral 'Advanced Voice Mode' demos. The preview endpoint was sunset as OpenAI transitioned to newer realtime models, leaving apps that built voice experiences on top of it with a hard migration deadline.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "gpt-4o-realtime-preview"
  },
  {
    "name": "DALL·E 3 API Snapshots",
    "dateOpen": "2023-10-19",
    "dateClose": "2026-05-12",
    "description": "The specific dated snapshots of DALL·E 3 used via the Images API were scheduled for removal as OpenAI consolidated image generation under GPT-4o's native image capabilities. Another casualty of the 'everything in one model' consolidation trend.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "dall-e-3-api-snapshots"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Assistant (on Mobile)",
    "dateOpen": "2016-05-18",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-04",
    "description": "The classic Google Assistant on Android phones and tablets, a decade-old voice assistant that once ran on hundreds of millions of devices. After its planned end-of-2025 retirement slipped into 2026, Google emailed users in August that Assistant was 'going away on mobile devices' and began removing it on September 4, 2026, a rollout of several weeks that also took it off Wear OS watches, headphones and Android Auto. There is no switching back. Cars with Google built-in, Google TV and Home speakers and displays kept Assistant for now.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Replaced by AI",
    "killedBy": "Google Gemini",
    "link": "https://9to5google.com/2026/08/04/google-assistant-september-2026-shutdown/",
    "collateral": "Years of voice command customizations, routines, and smart home configurations needed to be rebuilt in Gemini.",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "google-assistant-on-mobile"
  },
  {
    "name": "MiniMax API Free Tier",
    "dateOpen": "2024-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-04-13",
    "description": "Chinese AI lab MiniMax was one of the most generous in offering free API access to developers. Killed its free tier two days before Alibaba's Qwen did the same, which signaled the end of the 'free forever' era of Chinese AI APIs as labs pivot from land-grab growth to sustainable economics.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Monetization Pivot",
    "killedBy": "MiniMax",
    "link": "https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/gemini/articles/free-qwen-dead-alibaba-shuts-190159063.html",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-04-22",
    "slug": "minimax-api-free-tier"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Dark Web Report",
    "dateOpen": "2023-07-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-16",
    "description": "Google's security feature that monitored the dark web for leaked personal data. Scans stopped January 15, 2026, and all monitoring data was wiped February 16. Google said user feedback showed the tool failed to provide useful follow-up steps after flagging breaches.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Low Utility",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://thehackernews.com/2025/12/google-to-shut-down-dark-web-monitoring.html",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-04",
    "slug": "google-dark-web-report"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI Realtime API (Beta)",
    "dateOpen": "2024-10-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-05-12",
    "description": "OpenAI's WebSocket-based API for building real-time voice conversations, powering Advanced Voice Mode demos. The beta endpoint was deprecated as OpenAI shipped a GA (general availability) version with a different interface, forcing developers to rewrite their integrations.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "API Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-04",
    "slug": "openai-realtime-api-beta"
  },
  {
    "name": "Robin AI",
    "dateOpen": "2019-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-11-01",
    "description": "UK legal tech startup that raised $44M to build AI contract review tools used by PwC and KPMG. After failing to close a $50M Series C, the company cut a third of its staff and was listed on an insolvency marketplace, just 9 months after making the Sunday Times 100 Tech list.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Funding Collapse",
    "killedBy": "Market",
    "link": "https://www.legalcheek.com/2025/10/uk-lawtech-business-seeks-buyer-following-38-million-fundraising-setback/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 44,
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-04",
    "slug": "robin-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "Gmailify",
    "dateOpen": "2016-02-17",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-01",
    "description": "Google's feature that let users link Yahoo, Outlook, and other email accounts to Gmail and benefit from its spam filtering, inbox categories, and organization. Discontinued after a decade with little fuss, stranding users who relied on it to manage multiple email accounts from one interface.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Product Cleanup",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://nokiapoweruser.com/google-is-killing-these-android-features-in-2026-full-list/",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-04",
    "slug": "gmailify"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI AI Text Classifier",
    "dateOpen": "2023-01-31",
    "dateClose": "2023-07-20",
    "description": "OpenAI's tool to detect AI-generated text, launched to address concerns about ChatGPT being used for cheating and misinformation. Pulled with barely a mention after just 6 months because its accuracy was abysmal: it correctly identified only 26% of AI-written text while falsely flagging 9% of human-written text as AI.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Technical Failure",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://openai.com/index/new-ai-classifier-for-indicating-ai-written-text/",
    "collateral": "Educators who relied on it to detect AI-written assignments lost their only free detection tool from a major AI lab.",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-06",
    "slug": "openai-ai-text-classifier"
  },
  {
    "name": "Coqui AI",
    "dateOpen": "2021-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-03-01",
    "description": "An open-source text-to-speech startup that built the popular Coqui TTS library. Despite being a go-to for developers wanting voice synthesis, the company ran out of funding and shut down, releasing its final models to the community before going dark.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Funding Collapse",
    "killedBy": "Market",
    "link": "https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 3.3,
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-06",
    "slug": "coqui-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "Facebook AI Chatbots (Bob & Alice)",
    "dateOpen": "2017-06-15",
    "dateClose": "2017-06-20",
    "description": "Facebook's AI negotiation agents that famously 'invented their own language' during a research experiment. Shut down after just 5 days when they developed a shorthand humans couldn't understand. The media frenzy ('Facebook shuts down AI that created its own language') became one of the most viral AI stories ever.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Safety Concerns",
    "killedBy": "Meta",
    "link": "https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40790258",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-06",
    "slug": "facebook-ai-chatbots-bob-alice"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Project Mariner",
    "dateOpen": "2025-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-05-04",
    "description": "Google DeepMind's experimental AI browser agent that could navigate Chrome, fill out forms, book travel, and complete web tasks by taking screenshots and clicking for you. Killed after 17 months, with no big announcement, when staff were reassigned. The tech was absorbed into Gemini Agent. Privacy concerns and high compute costs for visual processing made it unsustainable.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://www.androidauthority.com/google-project-mariner-shutdown-3664323/",
    "collateral": "Early testers lost their web automation workflows. Saved routines and trained behaviors didn't transfer to Gemini Agent.",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-24",
    "slug": "google-project-mariner"
  },
  {
    "name": "Stainless SDK Generator",
    "dateOpen": "2022-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-05-18",
    "description": "The startup that auto-generated production-ready API SDKs in Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, and Kotlin. Used by OpenAI, Google, Cloudflare, Replicate, Runway, and Meta. Anthropic acquired it for $300M+ and immediately announced it would wind down all hosted products, a strategic kill to deny competitors access to critical infrastructure.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategic Acquisition",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/18/anthropic-has-acquired-the-dev-tools-startup-used-by-openai-google-and-cloudflare/",
    "collateral": "OpenAI, Google, Cloudflare, Meta, and dozens of companies lost automated SDK generation. Existing SDKs frozen in time.",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "fundingM": 3.5,
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-24",
    "slug": "stainless-sdk-generator"
  },
  {
    "name": "Kintsugi AI",
    "dateOpen": "2019-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-11",
    "description": "An AI startup that spent 7 years and $30M developing voice biomarker technology to detect depression and anxiety from how people speak. Shut down after nearly 4 years waiting for FDA De Novo clearance that never came. Open-sourced all code and research before closing, a rare act of scientific integrity in an industry of quiet deaths.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Regulatory Barriers",
    "killedBy": "FDA",
    "link": "https://endpoints.news/why-clinical-ai-startup-kintsugi-shut-down/",
    "collateral": "Clinical partners lost a diagnostic screening tool their patients relied on. Research datasets open-sourced as a consolation.",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 30,
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-24",
    "slug": "kintsugi-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "xAI Grok Legacy Models",
    "dateOpen": "2024-03-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-05-15",
    "description": "Eight Grok models retired at once: the reasoning and non-reasoning variants of grok-4-1-fast and grok-4-fast, plus grok-4-0709, grok-3, grok-code-fast-1 and grok-imagine-image-pro. xAI redirected the retired slugs instead of failing them. The chat models went to grok-4.3, grok-code-fast-1 to grok-build-0.1, and the image model to grok-imagine-image-quality, which is itself scheduled for retirement on November 2, 2026. Developers' bills and output quality changed without any code changes or errors.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "xAI",
    "link": "https://docs.x.ai/developers/migration/may-15-retirement",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-24",
    "slug": "xai-grok-legacy-models"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude 3.7 Sonnet",
    "dateOpen": "2025-02-24",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-19",
    "description": "Anthropic's first model with hybrid 'extended thinking': it could reason step-by-step for up to 128K tokens before answering, and it posted the best scores yet on SWE-Bench coding benchmarks at launch. Deprecated on October 28, 2025, eight months after release, and retired from Anthropic's API on February 19, 2026, five days short of its first birthday, as the Claude 4 family made extended thinking standard across the lineup. Google Cloud kept serving it until May 11, 2026.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/model-deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-06-10",
    "slug": "claude-3-7-sonnet"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude Sonnet 4 & Opus 4",
    "dateOpen": "2025-05-22",
    "dateClose": "2026-06-15",
    "description": "Anthropic's flagship Claude 4 generation, Sonnet 4 and Opus 4, launched together on May 22, 2025 and retired together 389 days later. Deprecation was announced April 14, 2026, and calls to claude-sonnet-4-20250514 and claude-opus-4-20250514 have returned errors since June 15. Anthropic points users to claude-sonnet-4-6 and claude-opus-4-8. Amazon Bedrock kept Sonnet 4 running until October 14.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/model-deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-24",
    "slug": "claude-sonnet-4-opus-4"
  },
  {
    "name": "Cydoc",
    "dateOpen": "2019-02-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-21",
    "description": "A bootstrapped health AI startup that operated for 7 years trying to build clinical AI tools. The founder published a detailed postmortem explaining why even technically sound health AI products die: the regulatory maze, slow hospital sales cycles, and the impossibility of competing with Big Tech's free AI offerings.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Market Conditions",
    "killedBy": "Big Tech",
    "link": "https://glassboxmedicine.com/2026/02/21/why-i-shut-down-my-bootstrapped-health-ai-startup-after-7-years-a-founders-postmortem/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 0.5,
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-24",
    "slug": "cydoc"
  },
  {
    "name": "GPT-5.2 & GPT-5.3 (API Snapshots)",
    "dateOpen": "2026-01-15",
    "dateClose": "2026-05-08",
    "description": "OpenAI deprecated the gpt-5.2-chat-latest and gpt-5.3-chat-latest snapshots less than 4 months after release. The pace of model churn has become so extreme that even 'latest' models are now deprecated quarterly, leaving developers in a permanent migration treadmill.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-24",
    "slug": "gpt-5-2-gpt-5-3-api-snapshots"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude Fable 5 & Mythos 5 (June Suspension)",
    "dateOpen": "2026-06-09",
    "dateClose": "2026-06-12",
    "description": "Anthropic's most powerful model ever, a 'Mythos-class' tier above Opus that scored 10%+ higher than Opus 4.8. Launched June 9, killed June 12 when the U.S. Commerce Department issued a national-security export directive barring use by any foreign national anywhere, Anthropic's own staff included. The only way to comply was to shut it off for everyone. Dead for 19 days until Commerce lifted the controls on June 30; Fable 5 returned globally on July 1 with a new jailbreak classifier. A rare resurrection: killed by government order, then un-killed.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Government Order (Reversed)",
    "killedBy": "U.S. Government",
    "link": "https://9to5google.com/2026/07/01/anthropic-fable-5-returns-to-claude/",
    "collateral": "Developers who integrated Fable 5 during its 3-day launch window lost access for 19 days with no warning. On its return, bundled access was capped then moved to metered credits on July 7.",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-07-13",
    "slug": "claude-fable-5-mythos-5-june-suspension"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Imagen (Vertex AI)",
    "dateOpen": "2023-06-07",
    "dateClose": "2026-06-24",
    "description": "Google's family of text-to-image models on Vertex AI, once the backbone of image generation across Google Cloud and Workspace. Retired June 24, 2026 as native image generation folded directly into the Gemini 3 models. Apps built on the standalone Imagen endpoints were forced to migrate to Gemini's built-in image gen.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://docs.cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-07-13",
    "slug": "google-imagen-vertex-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Whisk",
    "dateOpen": "2024-12-03",
    "dateClose": "2026-04-30",
    "description": "Google Labs' viral image-remixing tool that let users blend a Subject, Scene, and Style image instead of writing prompts. Its Sticker and Plushie styles briefly took over social media. Killed after 17 months when Google folded it into Flow, one more case of Google absorbing experimental AI products into fewer surfaces.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/03/whisk-is-moving-to-flow-on-april-30-2026.html",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-07-15",
    "slug": "google-whisk"
  },
  {
    "name": "Sourcegraph Cody (Free & Pro)",
    "dateOpen": "2023-06-28",
    "dateClose": "2025-07-01",
    "description": "One of the first serious AI coding assistants, with codebase-aware context that predated most rivals. Sourcegraph killed the free and individual Pro tiers to reposition Cody as enterprise-only, an early signal of AI dev tools abandoning the free-tier growth playbook once inference got priced at its real cost.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Monetization Pivot",
    "killedBy": "Sourcegraph",
    "link": "https://aiagentsquare.com/agents/sourcegraph-cody",
    "collateral": "Individual developers who built Cody into their daily workflow were left with no non-enterprise option.",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-07-15",
    "slug": "sourcegraph-cody-free-pro"
  },
  {
    "name": "TV Time",
    "dateOpen": "2011-09-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-15",
    "description": "The beloved TV-tracking app used by millions to log episodes and get recommendations for 15 years. Shut down so its parent company could refocus on AI products. It is one of the clearest cases of a healthy, loved product dying from its owner chasing the AI gold rush rather than from AI competition.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "AI Pivot",
    "killedBy": "Its Own Parent Company",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/02/popular-tv-tracking-app-tv-time-is-shutting-down-as-company-focuses-on-ai/",
    "collateral": "Fifteen years of user watch history, ratings, and social connections lost unless manually exported before shutdown.",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-07-15",
    "slug": "tv-time"
  },
  {
    "name": "Doubao & Qwen AI Agent Builders",
    "dateOpen": "2024-05-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-15",
    "description": "ByteDance's Doubao and Alibaba's Qwen both killed their AI-agent creation features on the same day, July 15, 2026, as China's Interim Measures for Anthropomorphic AI Interaction Services took effect. Every existing user-created agent stopped functioning too. Two of China's biggest AI platforms amputated a flagship feature simultaneously under regulatory pressure.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Regulatory Action",
    "killedBy": "Chinese Government",
    "link": "https://technode.com/2026/07/06/bytedances-doubao-and-alibabas-qwen-to-shut-down-ai-agent-features-on-july-15/",
    "collateral": "Millions of user-built agents across both platforms stopped working overnight, with no export or migration path.",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-07-15",
    "slug": "doubao-qwen-ai-agent-builders"
  },
  {
    "name": "Microsoft Clippy",
    "dateOpen": "1996-11-19",
    "dateClose": "2007-01-01",
    "description": "The iconic paperclip assistant from Microsoft Office that asked 'It looks like you're writing a letter. Would you like help?' Universally loathed by users but deeply loved in hindsight. Killed after a decade of annoyance, Clippy became the original AI assistant meme and the spiritual ancestor of every chatbot that followed.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "User Hatred",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-05-27",
    "slug": "microsoft-clippy"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI Atlas",
    "dateOpen": "2025-10-21",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-09",
    "description": "OpenAI's ChatGPT-powered web browser, launched October 2025 as its bid to own the browsing layer. Dead in under ten months. OpenAI absorbed the agentic browsing into ChatGPT and a Chrome extension instead. Bookmarks did not transfer automatically: users had to manually export them as HTML before the deadline or lose them, and open tabs and history didn't carry over.",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategic Retreat",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001371-evolving-atlas-into-chatgpt-for-browser-based-agentic-work",
    "collateral": "Bookmarks required manual HTML export before August 9. Open tabs and browsing history were not migrated at all.",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "openai-atlas"
  },
  {
    "name": "GitHub Models",
    "dateOpen": "2024-08-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-30",
    "description": "GitHub's free multi-model playground and inference API: Llama 3.1, GPT-4o, Cohere Command and Mistral Large, all callable with just a GitHub token. GitHub closed it to new customers in June 2026, then ran two deliberate 'brownouts' on July 16 and 23 where requests returned errors, to smoke out anyone still depending on it. On July 30 everything went dark, including for existing paying customers. Free model experimentation went back to being a cloud-procurement decision.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategic Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "GitHub",
    "link": "https://github.blog/changelog/2026-07-30-github-models-is-now-retired/",
    "collateral": "No grandfathering and no paid escape hatch. Projects that prototyped against a GitHub token had to migrate to a billed cloud provider.",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "github-models"
  },
  {
    "name": "Meta Llama API",
    "dateOpen": "2025-04-29",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-06",
    "description": "Meta's own hosted home for Llama inference, introduced at the first-ever LlamaCon in April 2025. Fourteen months later Meta retired the public preview and told developers to go rent Llama from AWS Bedrock, Together AI or Groq instead. Its replacement hosted service serves closed-weight models: cloud-only, with no downloadable weights. The company that built its reputation on open models kept the API business and dropped the open part.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategy Pivot",
    "killedBy": "Meta",
    "link": "https://llama.developer.meta.com/docs/llama-api-deprecation/",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "meta-llama-api"
  },
  {
    "name": "Amazon Bedrock Agents (Classic)",
    "dateOpen": "2023-11-28",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-30",
    "description": "AWS's flagship managed AI-agent product, launched at re:Invent 2023, was renamed 'Bedrock Agents Classic' and shoved into maintenance mode: closed to new customers, model catalog frozen, superseded by Bedrock AgentCore. New accounts calling CreateAgent now get a 403 citing maintenance mode. AWS broke its own CDK integration tests in the process and swapped the agent resource for a CloudWatch dashboard. One of roughly 20 services swept into maintenance in a single bulletin.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Maintenance Mode",
    "killedBy": "AWS",
    "link": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/agents-classic-maintenance-mode.html",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "amazon-bedrock-agents-classic"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI Operator (CUA Preview)",
    "dateOpen": "2025-01-23",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-23",
    "description": "OpenAI's Computer-Using Agent, the model that clicked, scrolled and typed its way around websites on your behalf. Shut down July 23, 2026 as part of a 14-model cull that also took gpt-5-codex, gpt-5.1-codex-max and gpt-5.2-codex. The whole computer-use preview line died in a single afternoon, eighteen months after it was billed as the future of agentic AI.",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "openai-operator-cua-preview"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude Opus 4.1",
    "dateOpen": "2025-08-05",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-05",
    "description": "Retired exactly one year to the day after release; the model ID, claude-opus-4-1-20250805, carries its own birthday. Anthropic gave 61 days' notice, one day above its stated 60-day minimum. It was the second flagship retirement in under two months after Sonnet 4 and Opus 4 both died June 15. Anthropic's own deprecation page concedes that retirement means researchers lose access for comparative studies and that it 'introduces safety- and model welfare-related risks.'",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Scheduled Retirement",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "link": "https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/model-deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "claude-opus-4-1"
  },
  {
    "name": "DeepSeek deepseek-chat & deepseek-reasoner",
    "dateOpen": "2025-01-20",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-24",
    "description": "The two API names the entire January 2025 DeepSeek boom was written against. DeepSeek killed them at 15:59 UTC on July 24, telling developers to call deepseek-v4-flash and toggle thinking mode in the request instead of switching model IDs. The migration notes promised the retired names would 'return 404.' They never did: weeks past the hard cutoff, third-party clients still had both names working as silent aliases, priced identically.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Renamed to Death",
    "killedBy": "DeepSeek",
    "link": "https://api-docs.deepseek.com/updates/",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "deepseek-deepseek-chat-deepseek-reasoner"
  },
  {
    "name": "Mistral Magistral",
    "dateOpen": "2025-06-10",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-31",
    "description": "Mistral's first reasoning models, shipped June 2025 as a separate product line. On July 31, 2026 the last two snapshots were retired, and the entire category went with them. Reasoning at Mistral is now just a request parameter, reasoning_effort, on general-purpose models. The official migration path runs from magistral-small-latest to mistral-small-latest, a one-letter difference, at roughly 70% less on input.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Category Collapse",
    "killedBy": "Mistral",
    "link": "https://docs.mistral.ai/models/model-cards/magistral-small-1-2-25-09",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "mistral-magistral"
  },
  {
    "name": "Groq Qwen3-32B & Llama 4 Scout",
    "dateOpen": "2025-04-05",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-17",
    "description": "Groq deleted qwen/qwen3-32b and meta-llama/llama-4-scout-17b-16e-instruct on July 17, 2026, the first half of a two-stage cull that takes Llama 3.1 8B Instant and Llama 3.3 70B Versatile in August. The best-documented failure mode: a retired Groq model fails silently, so downstream apps didn't break, they just started sounding generic.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Catalog Pruning",
    "killedBy": "Groq",
    "link": "https://console.groq.com/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "groq-qwen3-32b-llama-4-scout"
  },
  {
    "name": "Relay.app",
    "dateOpen": "2021-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-16",
    "description": "AI-agent workflow automation pitched as a Zapier alternative, founded by Jacob Bank, an ex-Google Gmail and Calendar product lead whose previous startup Timeful was bought by Google. On July 16, 2026 the homepage was replaced with nothing but 'Relay.app is shutting down,' with no reason given. A month later the answer arrived: Bank and part of the team joined Google's Chrome division. The free tier stopped working August 15; paid accounts were given until September 14.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/17/ai-automation-startup-relay-shuts-down-staff-joins-googles-chrome-team/",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "collateral": "Free accounts lost access August 15 and paid access ended September 14, so automations built on Relay had to be rebuilt elsewhere.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-10",
    "slug": "relay-app",
    "fundingM": 8.1
  },
  {
    "name": "Groq Llama 3.1 8B Instant & Llama 3.3 70B Versatile",
    "dateOpen": "2024-07-23",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-16",
    "description": "The second half of Groq's two-stage catalog cull, after Qwen3-32B and Llama 4 Scout went in July. Free and developer tiers only; committed-spend enterprise contracts were exempt. llama-3.3-70b-versatile was the only free-tier model with enough context headroom for a lot of real production prompts, and nothing left in the free catalog replaced it.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Catalog Pruning",
    "killedBy": "Groq",
    "link": "https://console.groq.com/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-22",
    "slug": "groq-llama-3-1-8b-instant-llama-3-3-70b-versatile"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Imagen 4.0 (Gemini API)",
    "dateOpen": "2025-06-24",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-17",
    "description": "All three Imagen 4.0 variants on the Gemini API (generate, ultra and fast) died in under 14 months, after Google already slipped the date once. The best part was the exit signage: the pricing-page banner told users to migrate to Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, which was itself deprecated, with a shutdown since pushed to no earlier than March 15, 2027. An evacuation route into a building with its own demolition date.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "link": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/deprecations",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-22",
    "slug": "google-imagen-4-0-gemini-api"
  },
  {
    "name": "Cohere Command R & Command R+ on Amazon Bedrock",
    "dateOpen": "2024-04-30",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-19",
    "description": "The RAG-and-tool-use pair AWS launched on Bedrock in April 2024 both hit end-of-life at 08:00 UTC, after a staged wind-down: legacy in February, new customers cut off in May, hard kill in August. AWS named no replacement for either. Cohere had already pulled the originals from its own API back in September 2025, along with command-light, base command, summarize, and its entire fine-tuning product.",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "AWS",
    "link": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/model-lifecycle.html",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-22",
    "slug": "cohere-command-r-command-r-on-amazon-bedrock"
  },
  {
    "name": "Reforged Labs",
    "dateOpen": "2023-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-31",
    "description": "Built AI-generated video ad creative for mobile game studios and won real customers (Supercell, King, Ubisoft, Playtika, Scopely) with 17 staff across Vietnam and the US. CEO Robert Huynh shut it down after three years because foundation models got good enough for studios to build the same tooling in-house: 'the gap we were selling into is closing.' Its biggest customers signed six-figure contracts; there were too few studios at that scale to sustain a company.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "Foundation Models",
    "link": "https://www.pocketgamer.biz/reforged-labs-shuts-down-as-ceo-says-ai-is-closing-its-market-opportunity/",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 3.9,
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-22",
    "slug": "reforged-labs"
  },
  {
    "name": "Yupp.ai",
    "dateOpen": "2025-06-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-03-31",
    "description": "A crowdsourced AI-evaluation platform that paid users to compare model outputs, backed by $33M from a16z crypto. It reached 1.3 million users and still died inside a year. The labs had moved on to expert-sourced data and agentic evaluation: broad consumer preference signal stopped being the scarce input anyone would pay for. Co-founders Pankaj Gupta and Gilad Mishne kept it accessible for two weeks after the announcement, then closed signups permanently.",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "No Product-Market Fit",
    "killedBy": "Market",
    "link": "https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/yupp-ai-shuts-down-after-33m-a16z-crypto-raise",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 33,
    "dateAdded": "2026-08-22",
    "slug": "yupp-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI Assistants API",
    "dateOpen": "2023-11-06",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-26",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Replaced by Responses API",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "link": "https://community.openai.com/t/assistants-api-beta-deprecation-august-26-2026-sunset/1354666",
    "description": "OpenAI's first stab at agents-as-a-service: threads, runs, file search and code interpreter bundled behind one beta endpoint. Announced at DevDay on November 6, 2023, it never left beta, and on August 26, 2025 OpenAI gave it exactly one year to live. It died on the day in a hard cut (no read-only mode, no grace period), with the Responses API inheriting its best parts and developers inheriting a full rewrite. 1,024 days, every one of them labelled \"beta\".",
    "collateral": "Every agent built on threads and runs had to be rewritten against the Responses API before the deadline; requests to the old endpoints now return errors.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "slug": "openai-assistants-api"
  },
  {
    "name": "Claude 3 Haiku on Google Cloud",
    "dateOpen": "2024-04-09",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-23",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Partner Retirement",
    "killedBy": "Google Cloud",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/deprecations/partner-models",
    "description": "The last Claude 3-generation model on Google Cloud, deprecated there on February 23, 2026 and switched off on August 23. Anthropic itself had retired claude-3-haiku on April 20, so Google kept serving a model its maker had already buried for 125 extra days. Amazon Bedrock, not to be outdone, kept it on life support until September 10, when it reached end-of-life there too: one model, three funerals.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "slug": "claude-3-haiku-on-google-cloud"
  },
  {
    "name": "Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 Preview",
    "dateOpen": "2026-04-14",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-31",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/deprecations",
    "description": "Released April 14, 2026, deleted August 31: a 139-day lifespan for an embodied-reasoning model that never left preview. It had killed its own predecessor, ER 1.5, on April 30, and was in turn replaced by gemini-robotics-er-2-preview, which shipped July 30 (32 days before 1.6 was gone). Three robotics previews retired inside five months, none of which ever reached GA.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "slug": "gemini-robotics-er-1-6-preview"
  },
  {
    "name": "Mistral Medium 3 & 3.1",
    "dateOpen": "2025-05-07",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-31",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "Mistral",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://docs.mistral.ai/models/mistral-medium-3-25-05",
    "description": "Both retired the same day, August 31, 2026, in favour of Mistral Medium 3.5. Medium 3 shipped May 7, 2025 and lasted 481 days; Medium 3.1 shipped August 12, 2025 and managed 384. Both were marked deprecated on May 22, so developers got 101 days' notice, generous by 2026 standards, where some previews don't live that long.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "slug": "mistral-medium-3-3-1"
  },
  {
    "name": "DALL·E GPT (in ChatGPT)",
    "dateOpen": "2023-11-06",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-30",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Brand Retired",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/chatgpt/you-have-until-august-30-to-save-your-chatgpt-dall-e-images-heres-how-to-avoid-losing-them-forever",
    "description": "The official DALL·E GPT, the last place the DALL·E name still lived inside ChatGPT, retired on August 30, 2026, 1,028 days after it launched alongside custom GPTs at DevDay 2023. OpenAI would not say what happens to images stored inside it and advised users to download anything they wanted to keep. Image generation itself survives under the ChatGPT Images banner. Three DALL·E entries now share this graveyard.",
    "collateral": "Images stored inside the DALL·E GPT were not migrated; anything not downloaded before August 30 is gone.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "slug": "dall-e-gpt-in-chatgpt"
  },
  {
    "name": "Microsoft MAI-Image-2 & MAI-Image-2e",
    "dateOpen": "2026-02-20",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-15",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/openai/concepts/model-retirement-schedule",
    "description": "Microsoft's first in-house image models did not get long. MAI-Image-2 (February 20) and MAI-Image-2e (April 9) were retired from Azure Foundry on August 15, 2026 (176 and 128 days after release) in favour of MAI-Image-2.5 and 2.5-Flash. The successors are still in preview and already carry their own retirement date of October 1. Microsoft is now deprecating image models faster than most companies ship them.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "slug": "microsoft-mai-image-2-mai-image-2e"
  },
  {
    "name": "Anthropic Legacy Workbench",
    "dateOpen": "2023-07-11",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-17",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Replaced by Playground",
    "killedBy": "Anthropic",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/release-notes/overview",
    "description": "Announced July 17, 2026 and gone August 17, the legacy Console Workbench took its saved prompts, variables and evals with it; none migrated to the replacement \"playground\" that opened a day later. The three experimental prompt-tool endpoints (generate_prompt, improve_prompt, templatize_prompt) were retired the same day and now return errors. Thirty-one days' notice for an API that was, to be fair, always labelled experimental.",
    "collateral": "Saved prompts, variables and evals in the old Workbench were not carried over; anything not exported by August 17 was lost.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "slug": "anthropic-legacy-workbench"
  },
  {
    "name": "Flowise",
    "dateOpen": "2023-03-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-31",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Coding Agents",
    "killedBy": "AI Coding Agents",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "link": "https://github.com/FlowiseAI/Flowise/discussions/6727",
    "description": "The open-source drag-and-drop LLM builder with 55,000 GitHub stars, which Workday bought in August 2025, froze feature development on July 29, 2026, archived the repository on August 13 and declared end of life on August 31. Maintainer HenryHengZJ was frank about the cause: \"the typical rigid workflow low-code approach quickly hits the limit when it comes to complexity\" as developers hand complex work to coding agents instead. A tool for building AI without code, killed by AI that writes code. The Apache-2.0 source stays up for forks.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "slug": "flowise"
  },
  {
    "name": "Weights (weights.gg)",
    "slug": "weights-gg",
    "dateOpen": "2023-06-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-03-31",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "link": "https://www.techtimes.com/articles/317405/20260529/openai-acquires-weightsgg-voice-cloning-tech-deepfake-law-claims-arrests-losses-hit-893m.htm",
    "description": "The community voice-cloning and AI-music platform where thousands of celebrity and character voice models lived. Weights announced in January 2026 that it had never been profitable and closed on March 31; two months later The New York Times reported that OpenAI had bought its technology and roughly six engineers in an unannounced deal. Its library of consent-free celebrity voices had become a liability as deepfake laws tightened: the thing that made it popular was the thing that made it unsellable as a product.",
    "collateral": "Voice models not exported as .pth/.index files before March 31 are gone; the platform kept no archive.",
    "seo": {
      "title": "Weights AI shut down: what happened to weights.gg (2026)",
      "description": "Weights.gg closed on March 31, 2026 after announcing it was never profitable; OpenAI then acquired its voice-cloning tech and engineers. Timeline, reasons, and what happened to user voice models."
    },
    "fundingM": 4
  },
  {
    "name": "Wsup AI",
    "slug": "wsup-ai",
    "dateOpen": "2024-11-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-06-19",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Companion Market Squeeze",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "link": "https://www.barchart.com/story/news/3530872/wsup-ai-launches-independent-character-chat-replacement-following-wsupai-closure",
    "description": "A no-sign-up AI character-chat app that briefly found an audience a rung below Character.AI and Replika. In May 2026 it announced a wind-down: chats worked until May 24, accounts went read-only from May 25, and the service closed on June 19. No reason was given beyond the obvious one, that an 18-month-old companion app cannot outspend incumbents with multi-year head starts. An unrelated operator has since launched a look-alike under the same name.",
    "collateral": "Conversations, generated images and unused credits were frozen on May 25 and gone on June 19.",
    "seo": {
      "title": "Why did Wsup AI shut down? Closure timeline (June 2026)",
      "description": "Wsup.ai closed on June 19, 2026 after a staged wind-down announced in May. What the character-chat app was, why it died, and what happened to users' conversations and credits."
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "HereAfter AI",
    "slug": "hereafter-ai",
    "dateOpen": "2021-11-16",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-18",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-09",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Wind-down",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "link": "https://www.afterlife.ai/hereafter-ai-shutting-down",
    "description": "The grief-tech pioneer that interviewed people about their lives so relatives could later ask questions and hear answers in the recorded voice. Former journalist James Vlahos built it from the 'Dadbot' he made of his dying father. Vlahos left in January 2024; the iOS app was last updated in September 2023. A farewell notice appeared on the homepage in July 2026 with no deadline, telling families to email support to export recordings; by August 18 the site itself no longer loaded. ⚠ The closing date here is the day the site went dark, as no official end date was published.",
    "collateral": "Families who did not email for an export lost the recordings; no self-service download existed.",
    "seo": {
      "title": "HereAfter AI shutting down: what happened (2026)",
      "description": "HereAfter AI, the app that let families talk to a recorded relative, posted a farewell notice in July 2026 and went dark in August. What it was, why it wound down, and how to recover recordings."
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "MAI-Code-1-Flash (GitHub Copilot)",
    "slug": "mai-code-1-flash-github-copilot",
    "dateOpen": "2026-06-02",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-10",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-12",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "GitHub / Microsoft",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://github.blog/changelog/2026-08-11-upcoming-deprecation-of-mai-code-1-flash/",
    "description": "Microsoft's first purpose-built small coding model for GitHub Copilot, announced June 2, 2026 as \"the first in a new wave\" of Copilot-tuned models. On August 11 GitHub shipped MAI-Code-1.1-Flash (with vision) and, in the same day's changelog, put 1.0 on notice; it was removed from every Copilot surface on September 10. One hundred days from launch to retirement: the first wave lasted about as long as a summer."
  },
  {
    "name": "Amazon Nova Premier & Nova Sonic",
    "dateOpen": "2024-12-03",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-14",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "Amazon",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/model-lifecycle.html",
    "description": "Amazon's flagship Nova model and its speech sibling, launched at re:Invent 2024 as AWS's answer to frontier models. Both entered Legacy status in March 2026 and reached end of life on September 14, inside two years. AWS migrated nothing automatically; Legacy models also cut off any customer inactive for 15 days, so some accounts lost access before the deadline arrived.",
    "collateral": "No automatic migration. Provisioned Throughput could not be renewed, and accounts idle for 15 days lost access early.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-22",
    "slug": "amazon-nova-premier-nova-sonic"
  },
  {
    "name": "MAI-Transcribe-1 (Microsoft Foundry)",
    "dateOpen": "2026-01-23",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-15",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/openai/concepts/model-retirement-schedule",
    "description": "Microsoft's first-party speech model, version 2026-01-23, retired from Foundry on September 15 at less than eight months old, replaced by MAI-Transcribe-1.5. The same accelerated churn that took MAI-Image-2 at 176 days and MAI-Code-1-Flash at 100.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-22",
    "slug": "mai-transcribe-1-microsoft-foundry"
  },
  {
    "name": "Huxe",
    "dateOpen": "2024-10-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-05-22",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "Google / Spotify",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 4.6,
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/22/audio-generation-app-huxe-founded-by-former-notebooklm-developers-shuts-down/",
    "description": "An AI audio app from three former NotebookLM developers that turned a prompt into a podcast, a personalised feed, or a live AI radio station you could interrupt mid-sentence. It raised $4.6M from Conviction, Dylan Field and Google's own Jeff Dean. Spotify shipped a near-identical personal podcast feature one day before the wind-down notice, and Google's Gemini Daily Brief had landed at I/O weeks earlier. Built by ex-Googlers, buried by Google.",
    "collateral": "The app was pulled from both stores and user data deleted; generated audio was not exportable.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-22",
    "slug": "huxe"
  },
  {
    "name": "Figgs AI",
    "dateOpen": "2023-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-12-30",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Unsustainable Costs",
    "killedBy": "Inference Bills",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 0,
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/15/the-ai-graveyard-a-running-list-of-projects-and-startups-that-didnt-make-it/",
    "description": "A character-chat platform for role-play and storytelling that reached more than a million users on a free tier, with no funding and no revenue at any point. Character chat is among the most expensive things to serve per user, and the developers shut it down at the end of 2024 rather than charge for it. It had more users than it could afford to serve for free.",
    "collateral": "Custom characters, multiplayer rooms and the community library went offline with no export.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-22",
    "slug": "figgs-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "theGist",
    "dateOpen": "2022-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-09-03",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "No Product-Market Fit",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 7,
    "link": "https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/jeyngl375",
    "description": "An Israeli startup that scanned Slack, email, CRM and analytics to hand each employee a personalised summary of what mattered. It was founded in 2022 by alumni of Wix, Blizzard, OpenWeb and Gong, with a $7M pre-seed co-led by StageOne and Aleph. A pivot toward sales tooling never caught, and rather than spend the remainder the founders closed the company and said they would return the money to investors. ⚠ Closure announced September 3, 2025 (Calcalist/CTech); no exact shutdown date was published.",
    "collateral": "Returning capital instead of burning it is rare: the founders said investors would get their money back.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-22",
    "slug": "thegist"
  },
  {
    "name": "GM Cruise",
    "dateOpen": "2013-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-12-10",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Parent Pulled Funding",
    "killedBy": "General Motors",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "fundingM": 10000,
    "link": "https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/10/gm-halts-funding-of-robotaxi-development-by-cruise.html",
    "description": "The robotaxi startup GM bought in 2016 and then poured more than $10 billion into, with Honda ($852M), Microsoft and SoftBank alongside. Driverless paid rides began in San Francisco in 2022; a 2023 crash in which a Cruise car dragged a pedestrian, and the company's handling of it, cost it its California permit. In December 2024 Mary Barra ended the program, citing the 'incremental time and capital' still needed. The most expensive AI product death on record.",
    "collateral": "About 1,000 Cruise staff were cut in February 2025; Microsoft took an $800M write-down on its stake.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-29",
    "slug": "gm-cruise"
  },
  {
    "name": "Argo AI",
    "dateOpen": "2016-12-01",
    "dateClose": "2022-10-26",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Backers Pulled Out",
    "killedBy": "Ford & Volkswagen",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 3600,
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/ford-vw-backed-argo-ai-is-shutting-down/",
    "description": "Pittsburgh's self-driving champion, backed by roughly $1 billion from Ford and $2.6 billion from Volkswagen. Six years in, both backers decided that fully driverless cars were further away than they could keep paying for, declined to invest further, and absorbed its assets. Around 2,000 employees were offered jobs at the two carmakers; the company itself shut down.",
    "collateral": "Roughly 2,000 staff were split between Ford and VW or let go; Ford took a $2.7B write-down.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-29",
    "slug": "argo-ai"
  },
  {
    "name": "Forward (CarePods)",
    "dateOpen": "2016-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-11-12",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Overpromised",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 657,
    "link": "https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/primary-care-player-forward-shutters-after-raising-400m-rolling-out-carepods",
    "description": "A primary-care startup that raised $657M on the promise of AI-run doctor's offices, culminating in 'CarePods', self-serve kiosks meant to automate check-ups. Only three pods ever launched, one was pulled soon after installation, and former staff described patients getting stuck inside. Forward shut down in November 2024 with a few weeks' notice.",
    "collateral": "Members lost their primary-care provider mid-treatment, with medical support ending December 13.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-29",
    "slug": "forward-carepods"
  },
  {
    "name": "Embark Trucks",
    "dateOpen": "2016-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2023-03-03",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Capital Dried Up",
    "killedBy": "Market",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 400,
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/03/embark-trucks-lays-off-workers-explores-liquidation-of-self-driving-truck-assets/",
    "description": "An autonomous-trucking company that went public via SPAC in 2021 and raised more than $400 million. With no revenue and capital markets closed to pre-revenue companies, it cut 70% of staff and began liquidating its self-driving truck assets in March 2023. Its timeline for driverless freight never arrived; the money did run out.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-29",
    "slug": "embark-trucks"
  },
  {
    "name": "Ghost Autonomy",
    "dateOpen": "2017-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2024-04-03",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Funding Collapse",
    "killedBy": "Market",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 220,
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/03/openai-backed-ghost-autonomy-shuts-down/",
    "description": "A self-driving software startup that raised about $220M and, months before closing, landed an investment from OpenAI's startup fund to bring large language models to autonomous driving. It shut down worldwide on April 3, 2024, unable to secure the long-term funding its plan required.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-29",
    "slug": "ghost-autonomy"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI davinci-002, babbage-002 & gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct",
    "dateOpen": "2023-08-22",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-28",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "description": "The end of the GPT-3 base-model lineage, retired September 28. davinci-002 and babbage-002 shipped in August 2023 and inherited the job when the original ada/babbage/curie/davinci died in January 2024; gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct, the instruct-tuned completions model, joined them that September. The same cutoff also took a fourth model: gpt-3.5-turbo-1106, the chat snapshot from OpenAI's November 2023 DevDay. OpenAI's suggested replacement is gpt-5.6-terra; their fine-tuned versions outlive them by 25 days.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-29",
    "slug": "openai-davinci-002-babbage-002-gpt-3-5-turbo-instruct"
  },
  {
    "name": "Reve AI Image Generation",
    "dateOpen": "2025-03-24",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-27",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hired",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "link": "https://www.digitaltoday.co.kr/en/view/105109/startup-reve-to-end-image-generation-service-after-openai-investment-sept-27",
    "description": "Reve's image generator (briefly the top-ranked text-to-image model on launch in March 2025) shut off at noon Pacific on September 27, the price of an investment from OpenAI, which also took its AI research team to lead multimodal work. The API went dark on August 14 and sign-ups stopped September 17; users have until October 31 to export, and September fees are refunded. Reve itself carries on without its image generator.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-09-29",
    "slug": "reve-ai-image-generation"
  },
  {
    "name": "Mistral Leanstral 1.5",
    "dateOpen": "2026-06-30",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-30",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Mistral",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://github.com/mistralai/platform-docs-public",
    "description": "Mistral's Lean 4 formal-proof model was retired on September 30, exactly as its own launch note promised: 'We released Leanstral 1.5... This model will be retired on September 30, 2026.' A 92-day advertised lifespan, announced in the same sentence as its birth, with no replacement named.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-01",
    "slug": "mistral-leanstral-1-5"
  },
  {
    "name": "Amazon Mechanical Turk",
    "dateOpen": "2005-11-02",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-30",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Replaced by AI",
    "killedBy": "Amazon",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "link": "https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/25/amazon-service-that-jeff-bezos-called-artificial-ai-is-shutting-down.html",
    "description": "The marketplace Jeff Bezos called \"artificial artificial intelligence\" closed on September 30 after 21 years: the human crowd, 500,000 strong at its peak, that labelled a generation of AI training data. Amazon shut SageMaker Ground Truth and Amazon Augmented AI the same day, leaving human-data work entirely. The official reason was an internal review of its programs; the obvious one is that the models MTurk workers trained now do MTurk's work.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-01",
    "slug": "amazon-mechanical-turk"
  },
  {
    "name": "Amazon Nova Canvas & Nova Reel",
    "dateOpen": "2024-12-03",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-30",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Deprecation",
    "killedBy": "Amazon",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/bedrock/latest/userguide/model-lifecycle.html",
    "description": "The image and video half of Amazon's first Nova generation, launched at re:Invent 2024, left Bedrock on September 30, two weeks after Nova Premier and Sonic. AWS pointed image users to Nova 2 Lite and video users to a rival's model, Luma Ray v2.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-01",
    "slug": "amazon-nova-canvas-nova-reel"
  },
  {
    "name": "OpenAI GPT-5.4-Cyber",
    "dateOpen": "2026-04-14",
    "dateClose": "2026-10-01",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "OpenAI",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/deprecations",
    "description": "The 'cyber-permissive' GPT-5.4 variant built for vetted security defenders, which could reverse-engineer binaries and anchored OpenAI's Trusted Access for Cyber program, was shut down October 1 after five and a half months, with three weeks' notice. OpenAI's replacement advice: 'the most capable cyber model available to you.'",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-01",
    "slug": "openai-gpt-5-4-cyber"
  },
  {
    "name": "Notion Mail",
    "dateOpen": "2025-04-15",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-22",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Replaced by AI",
    "killedBy": "Notion",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "link": "https://www.heise.de/en/news/Notion-Mail-is-shutting-down-What-users-need-to-do-now-11345988.html",
    "description": "Notion's AI email client lasted 17 months. Notion shut the web, desktop and iOS apps on September 22, explaining that more than half its users were already handling email through agents without ever opening the inbox. The Gmail connector and email-writing agents live on without the inbox.",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-06",
    "slug": "notion-mail"
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Mixboard",
    "slug": "google-mixboard",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-09-23",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-28",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Product Cleanup",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "link": "https://support.google.com/labs/answer/16689296",
    "description": "Google Labs' AI concepting board: an open canvas where Google's Nano Banana image model generated, remixed and edited pictures into mood boards and presentations. It launched as a US-only public beta on September 23, 2025, spread to more than 180 countries that October, and was taken offline on September 28, 2026, a year and five days later. Google said it had 'learned a lot from this experiment' and would apply the lessons to 'future Google Labs explorations and creative tooling.' It follows Whisk and Doppl, two other Labs experiments Google shut down on April 30, 2026.",
    "collateral": "Boards, generated images, uploaded assets and prompt history were permanently deleted, and shared board links and presentations stopped working. Export was one board at a time, as a zip of PNGs."
  },
  {
    "name": "Perplexity Sonar Chat Completions API",
    "slug": "perplexity-sonar-chat-completions-api",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-01-21",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-27",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "API Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "Perplexity",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "link": "https://docs.perplexity.ai/docs/agent-api/migrate-from-sonar/overview",
    "description": "Perplexity's search-grounded chat-completions API, launched January 21, 2025 with Sonar and Sonar Pro and later joined by sonar-reasoning-pro and sonar-deep-research. Support ended September 27, 2026, when the Agent API became the main surface. Synchronous and streaming calls are being silently rewritten as Agent API presets (sonar and sonar-pro become 'fast', reasoning-pro 'low', deep-research 'high'); asynchronous requests are no longer supported. Some developers on migrated accounts reported HTTP 403 'agent_api_migration_required' errors from the old endpoint. The Sonar model lives on inside the Agent API and has outlived the API that carried its name."
  },
  {
    "name": "Raptor mini (GitHub Copilot)",
    "slug": "raptor-mini-github-copilot",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-11-10",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-01",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "GitHub / Microsoft",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://github.blog/changelog/2026-08-31-selected-github-copilot-models-deprecated/",
    "description": "GitHub's own model, a fine-tuned GPT-5 mini pitched for fast, accurate inline suggestions and explanations. It entered public preview on November 10, 2025, only ever in VS Code's Copilot Chat, and was listed as generally available by August 2026. On September 1 GitHub removed it from Copilot Chat, inline edits, ask and agent modes and code completions, in the same changelog that retired a batch of Claude and Gemini models. Unlike those, Raptor mini existed nowhere else: 295 days, start to finish. Its replacement is MAI-Code-1.1-Flash, whose predecessor was pulled from Copilot nine days later."
  },
  {
    "name": "Excel =COPILOT() Function",
    "slug": "excel-copilot-function",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-08-18",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-14",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Feature Absorption",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/copilot-function-5849821b-755d-4030-a38b-9e20be0cbf62",
    "description": "A worksheet function that put an LLM inside a cell: =COPILOT(prompt, range) could summarize, classify or tag rows in place. It reached Beta Channel Insiders with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license on August 18, 2025, and Excel for the web through Frontier later, with Microsoft's own warning, as Windows Central reported, not to use it for numerical calculations or anything with legal, regulatory or compliance implications. In a spreadsheet, that rules out a lot. It never left preview: message-center notice MC1454373 retired it on September 14, 2026, and the roadmap entry said only, 'We have decided not to move forward with this feature.'",
    "collateral": "Results already calculated survive only as cached values; any cell that recalculates now returns #NAME? because Excel no longer recognizes the function. Preview users had to redo that work by prompting the Copilot side pane."
  },
  {
    "name": "Mistral OCR 4.0",
    "slug": "mistral-ocr-4-0",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2026-06-23",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-30",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "Mistral",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://docs.mistral.ai/resources/changelogs",
    "description": "Mistral released OCR 4 (mistral-ocr-4-0) on June 23, 2026, supporting 170 languages and claiming independent annotators preferred it over every leading OCR and document-AI system tested, with a 72% average win rate. OCR 4.1 took over the mistral-ocr-4 and mistral-ocr-latest aliases on July 16 and went GA on August 31. The changelog marked 4.0 deprecated on September 29 and retired it on September 30, at the same price as its replacement: one day's formal notice. It lived 99 days and died the same day as Leanstral 1.5."
  },
  {
    "name": "Gemini API Antigravity Agent (05-2026 preview)",
    "slug": "gemini-api-antigravity-agent-05-2026-preview",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2026-05-19",
    "dateClose": "2026-10-05",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Model Upgrade",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/deprecations",
    "description": "antigravity-preview-05-2026 was the first version of Google's managed Antigravity agent in the Gemini API, launched May 19, 2026 alongside Managed Agents. On September 17 Google shipped antigravity-preview-09-2026, which swapped the old file tools for new ones (write_file became write_to_file and replace_file_content, read_file became view_file, list_files became list_dir), moved tool parameters to PascalCase, replaced full-file rewrites with line-range edits, and set the old agent's shutdown for October 5. It lived 139 days. Apps that only read its output changed one string; anyone running its tools locally or parsing its function calls had to rewrite code. The Antigravity IDE is unaffected."
  },
  {
    "name": "Kimi K2.7 Code (GitHub Copilot & Microsoft Foundry)",
    "slug": "kimi-k2-7-code-github-copilot-microsoft-foundry",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2026-07-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-10-02",
    "type": "model",
    "causeOfDeath": "Partner Retirement",
    "killedBy": "GitHub / Microsoft",
    "deathType": "model-upgrade",
    "link": "https://github.blog/changelog/2026-10-02-selected-models-in-github-copilot-deprecated",
    "description": "Moonshot's open-weight coding model went generally available in GitHub Copilot on July 1, 2026 and was removed from every Copilot surface on October 2, 93 days later, with Kimi K3 named as its replacement. The next day Microsoft Foundry's preview deployment (version 2026-06-12) hit its October 3 retirement date with no replacement listed. The same Copilot changelog also cleared out Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini 3.6 Flash and Claude Opus 4.7. Moonshot's own API still lists kimi-k2.7-code as active; only Microsoft let go."
  },
  {
    "name": "Appsmith AI",
    "slug": "appsmith-ai",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2024-01-16",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-30",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Unsustainable Costs",
    "killedBy": "Appsmith",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://github.com/appsmithorg/appsmith/releases/tag/v2.4.3",
    "description": "The low-code platform's managed AI datasource, merged in January 2024, which ran on model credentials Appsmith paid for. A pull request opened July 17, 2026 spelled out the problem: 'Appsmith pays for LLM tokens behind the managed Appsmith AI plugin.' From release 2.3 on August 13, new Appsmith AI datasources and queries were blocked with errors AE-DTS-4031 and AE-DTS-4032, and on September 30, 2026 every existing one stopped working, whether or not the instance had been upgraded. Free AI, it turns out, has a meter.",
    "collateral": "Existing Appsmith AI queries were not migrated automatically and had to be rebuilt by hand on bring-your-own-key OpenAI, Anthropic or Google AI datasources."
  },
  {
    "name": "Rilo",
    "slug": "rilo",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-02",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "Adobe",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "fundingM": 1,
    "link": "https://inc42.com/buzz/adobe-acquires-peak-xv-backed-ai-martech-startup-rilo/",
    "description": "An Indian startup founded in 2025 by IIT Bombay alumni Dhruv Jaglan and Georgi Boby, selling AI agents for marketing work described in plain English: competitor intelligence, campaign research, social outreach, content repurposing and sales-call analysis. It raised $1M from Peak XV Partners, DeVC and Day Zero Ventures at a $10M valuation and, by Jaglan's account, reached 10,000 users within months of launch. On September 2, 2026 Adobe acquired it in an undisclosed deal that licensed its technology and brought its six-person team into Adobe. The platform shut down after the deal; no switch-off date was published.",
    "collateral": "Existing customers lost access to the platform, with no data-export window announced."
  },
  {
    "name": "TruckSmarter Dispatch",
    "slug": "trucksmarter-dispatch",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-09-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-04",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acquisition",
    "killedBy": "Undisclosed Acquirer",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "link": "https://www.freightwaves.com/news/trucksmarter-shutting-down",
    "description": "TruckSmarter ran a free load board used by more than 500,000 carriers. In September 2025, alongside a $16M round led by Socium Ventures, it launched Dispatch, an AI chat interface where drivers asked for freight in plain language and software agents handled the bidding and booking. On Tuesday, September 1, 2026 it told users it was being acquired, and on Friday, September 4 it switched the app off. Nobody will say who bought it; OTR Solutions, which had bought the factoring and banking arm in November 2025, says it wasn't them.",
    "collateral": "Active Dispatch subscriptions were cancelled on September 4; invoices paid in the previous 30 days were refunded within seven business days."
  },
  {
    "name": "Amazon Lookout for Equipment",
    "slug": "amazon-lookout-for-equipment",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2021-04-08",
    "dateClose": "2026-10-07",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Product Cleanup",
    "killedBy": "AWS",
    "deathType": "product-killed",
    "link": "https://docs.aws.amazon.com/lookout-for-equipment/latest/ug/what-is.html",
    "description": "AWS's managed ML service that learned the normal behavior of industrial equipment from sensor data and flagged anomalies before failures. It went GA on April 8, 2021, closed to new customers in late 2024 and was discontinued on October 7, 2026, after which the console and all resources became inaccessible. AWS pointed customers to the native anomaly detection added to AWS IoT SiteWise in July 2025, plus a GitHub repo of migration scripts. Its siblings Lookout for Metrics and Lookout for Vision were already gone, both in October 2025."
  },
  {
    "name": "Gemini CLI (Free & Consumer Tiers)",
    "slug": "gemini-cli-free-consumer-tiers",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-06-25",
    "dateClose": "2026-06-18",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategic Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://developers.googleblog.com/en/an-important-update-transitioning-gemini-cli-to-antigravity-cli/",
    "description": "Google's open-source (Apache-2.0) terminal coding agent launched June 25, 2025 and passed 100,000 GitHub stars and 6,000 merged pull requests. At I/O on May 19, 2026 Google folded its developer tools under the Antigravity brand, and on June 18 Gemini CLI and the Gemini Code Assist IDE extensions stopped serving free users, Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers and free individual Code Assist users. Their replacement, Antigravity CLI (agy), ships as a binary with no public repo. Code Assist Standard and Enterprise licenses and paid API keys kept access, and Google still updates the open-source repo for them, so the code outlived its free users."
  },
  {
    "name": "Microsoft Copilot Groups, Podcasts & Deep Research",
    "slug": "microsoft-copilot-groups-podcasts-deep-research",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-04-04",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-18",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Product Cleanup",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/learning/changes-microsoft-copilot-app",
    "description": "Three headline features of Microsoft's consumer Copilot were retired from August 18, 2026, as Microsoft merged its consumer Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot apps into one. AI-generated Podcasts and Deep Research had debuted at Copilot's April 2025 anniversary event; Groups, which let up to 32 people share one Copilot chat, arrived in the October 2025 Fall Release alongside Mico, the animated blob, which began leaving Copilot Voice in waves that same August. Copilot chief Jacob Andreou had reportedly told staff the app had to earn 'the right to exist' in people's lives.",
    "collateral": "Group chat threads and the images generated in them were not carried forward, and previously created podcasts became inaccessible unless downloaded one by one beforehand. Deep Research reports stayed in chat history, with Researcher offered to Microsoft 365 Premium users instead. Mico's customizations did not carry over."
  },
  {
    "name": "Microsoft Copilot Labs",
    "slug": "microsoft-copilot-labs",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2024-10-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-09-29",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Strategic Consolidation",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/frequently-asked-questions-about-retired-copilot-features",
    "description": "Microsoft's experimental sandbox for consumer Copilot, launched October 1, 2024 with Think Deeper, with Copilot Vision following soon after. Its biggest graduates had long since moved into the main app. On September 29, 2026 Labs was retired as part of the unified Copilot app, and Microsoft pointed early-access users to 'Frontier in Copilot' and the MAI Playground. What remained, experiments such as 3D and audio generation, died with it.",
    "collateral": "3D assets, audio clips and other content generated in Labs experiments did not carry forward unless downloaded before the account update."
  },
  {
    "name": "Microsoft Edge Real-Time Video Translation",
    "slug": "microsoft-edge-real-time-video-translation",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2025-10-02",
    "dateClose": "2026-08-27",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Product Cleanup",
    "killedBy": "Microsoft",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-relnote-stable-channel",
    "description": "On-device AI dubbing for the web. You hovered over a video, clicked Translate, and Edge downloaded a roughly 200 MB language model and replaced the audio track in real time. Shown off at Build 2024, it shipped in Edge 141 in October 2025, but only on Windows PCs with at least 12 GB of RAM and a four-core CPU, and only in select markets. Edge 152 began retiring it on August 27, 2026, less than eleven months later, in the same release that killed Edge Drop. Microsoft gave no reason."
  },
  {
    "name": "Google Earth AI Image Generation",
    "slug": "google-earth-ai-image-generation",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2026-07-30",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-31",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Public Backlash",
    "killedBy": "Google",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/earth/nano-banana-google-earth-image-generation/",
    "description": "On July 30, 2026 Google put Nano Banana 2 inside Google Earth on the web: zoom to any spot on the planet, click 'create image', and describe what should be there instead. A BBC journalist and other critics pointed out that one of the most trusted sources of visual evidence for journalists and researchers now had a fake-imagery button. By the next day Google said it had seen people 'sharing screenshots of generated imagery that appear to violate our policies' and rolled the feature back while it worked on stronger guardrails. It lived about a day."
  },
  {
    "name": "Meta AI Instagram @-Mention Images",
    "slug": "meta-ai-instagram-mention-images",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2026-07-07",
    "dateClose": "2026-07-10",
    "type": "service",
    "causeOfDeath": "Public Backlash",
    "killedBy": "Meta",
    "deathType": "feature-removed",
    "link": "https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/new-ai-effects-in-instagram-stories",
    "description": "Launched alongside Meta Superintelligence Labs' Muse Image generator on July 7, 2026, it let you @-mention a public Instagram account in Meta AI and generate images of that person, pitched for birthday cards and group-trip memes. It was on by default: account owners were never notified, and the only protection was an opt-out in Instagram's settings. Users and talent agencies including CAA pushed back, and critics pointed to the obvious non-consensual imagery risk. Three days later Meta posted a brief update to its announcement: 'this feature missed the mark, so it's no longer available.'",
    "collateral": "Muse Image itself stayed live; only the ability to generate images of other people's public accounts was removed."
  },
  {
    "name": "Dot (New Computer)",
    "slug": "dot-new-computer",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2024-06-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-10-05",
    "type": "app",
    "causeOfDeath": "Founder Split",
    "killedBy": "Its Own Founders",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/05/personalized-ai-companion-app-dot-is-shutting-down/",
    "description": "A personalized AI companion app from New Computer, co-founded by Sam Whitmore and former Apple designer Jason Yuan, that launched on iOS in June 2024. On September 5, 2025 the founders announced that their 'shared Northstar had diverged' and that, rather than compromise either vision, they would 'wind down operations'. The app stopped on October 5, 2025, after a month for data export. The company claimed 'hundreds of thousands' of users; Appfigures counted about 24,500 lifetime iOS downloads, and there was never an Android app."
  },
  {
    "name": "LOVO AI",
    "slug": "lovo-ai",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2019-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-05-27",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Chapter 7 Liquidation",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "link": "https://news.bgov.com/ip-law/voice-actors-suit-against-lovo-paused-amid-ai-firms-bankruptcy",
    "description": "A Berkeley AI voiceover and voice-cloning startup, founded in 2019, behind the Genny text-to-speech studio. LOVO filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on May 27, 2026, listing $245,224 in assets against $17,788 in liabilities. The filing landed less than three weeks before a June 16 hearing on its motion to dismiss Lehrman & Sage v. Lovo, a class action by voice actors who say their voices were cloned without permission; the bankruptcy automatically stayed the case. Paying customers had been reporting on Trustpilot since late April that they were locked out of their accounts.",
    "collateral": "Paying users lost access to their accounts and generated voiceovers, and the voice actors' class action is frozen by the bankruptcy stay."
  },
  {
    "name": "Untether AI",
    "slug": "untether-ai",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2018-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-06-05",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "AMD",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "fundingM": 168,
    "link": "https://thelogic.co/briefing/toronto-chipmaker-untether-ai-shuts-down-sells-team-to-amd/",
    "description": "A Toronto AI-inference chip startup selling speedAI accelerators and the imAIgine SDK. PitchBook data cited by The Logic puts its funding at US$168M from backers including CPP Investments, Intel Capital and Radical Ventures, with the last major round in July 2021. In early June 2025 AMD took its engineering team in an undisclosed deal, and Untether said it would 'no longer be supplying or supporting our speedAI products and imAIgine software development kit.' The engineers went to work on AMD's AI compiler, kernel and chip-design efforts.",
    "collateral": "speedAI hardware customers lost all supply and support, with no migration path named."
  },
  {
    "name": "Esperanto Technologies",
    "slug": "esperanto-technologies",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2014-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-07-01",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Talent Poaching",
    "killedBy": "Deep-Pocketed Rivals",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 63,
    "link": "https://www.eetimes.com/ai-startup-esperanto-winds-down-silicon-business/",
    "description": "A RISC-V AI-inference chipmaker founded in 2014 by Transmeta co-founder Dave Ditzel. Its 7nm ET-SoC-1 packed 1,088 small ET-Minion cores and four larger ET-Maxion cores onto one chip. A $58M Series B in November 2018 brought equity funding to $63M, plus a $1.5M PPP loan in 2020. In July 2025 it closed most operations, keeping only the staff needed to sell its IP, after rivals offered prospective employees up to four times its pay. Ainekko (Nekko.ai) bought the IP that October and is open-sourcing it."
  },
  {
    "name": "Soul Machines",
    "slug": "soul-machines",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2016-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2026-02-05",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Funding Collapse",
    "killedBy": "Itself",
    "deathType": "startup-failed",
    "fundingM": 135,
    "link": "https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/ai-casualty-once-high-flying-soul-machines-in-receivership/YCN66TQ7BJDFLAMSWGKQCIJNN4/",
    "description": "A New Zealand maker of AI 'Digital People' avatars, co-founded in 2016 by Greg Cross and Mark Sagar, a two-time Sci-Tech Academy Award winner for facial-capture work at Weta Digital. It raised more than US$135M (about NZ$225M) from backers including Horizons Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Salesforce Ventures and Temasek. On February 5, 2026 KPMG's Leon Bowker and Luke Norman were appointed receivers. On September 28, 2026 AppDirect announced it had acquired Soul Machines on undisclosed terms and would build the avatars into Devs.ai, so the faces live on with a different employer."
  },
  {
    "name": "PlayAI (PlayHT)",
    "slug": "playai-playht",
    "dateAdded": "2026-10-08",
    "dateOpen": "2016-01-01",
    "dateClose": "2025-12-31",
    "type": "startup",
    "causeOfDeath": "Acqui-hire",
    "killedBy": "Meta",
    "deathType": "acqui-hired",
    "fundingM": 21,
    "link": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/13/meta-acquires-voice-startup-play-ai/",
    "description": "PlayHT began in 2016 as a browser extension that read articles aloud and grew into a text-to-speech, voice-cloning and voice-agent platform, later renamed PlayAI. Founders Hammad Syed and Mahmoud Felfel went through Y Combinator and raised a $21M seed round in November 2024 led by Kindred Ventures and 500 Global. In July 2025 Meta acquired the company and took the entire team to work on voice for Meta AI, AI Characters and wearables. The API was given until December 31, 2025, and voice-agent frameworks such as Pipecat deprecated their PlayHT integrations ahead of the cutoff.",
    "collateral": "API customers had to migrate to another TTS provider before the December 31, 2025 shutdown."
  }
]