AI startups are scrambling to survive in big tech’s shadow

Startups in the AI world gathered at the AI Agent Conference this week in New York are scrambling to carve out a niche to avoid being overshadowed by industry leaders. “And it’s not even just startups, but for example what Claude has done to Figma and Canva,” Omer Trajman, founder of AskFora, told The New Stack during the conference, held at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. “Startups [founders] are trying to figure out, ‘Where can I innovate where I’m not going to get trampled on by one of the models.