"Claude Killed Our Startup": San Francisco Entrepreneur Says AI Tool Made Her Product Obsolete

Ira Bodnar, founder of the San Francisco-based startup Ryze, went viral after stating that Anthropic's Claude AI had effectively killed her business overnight. The disruption occurred after Anthropic and another AI firm, Manus, rolled out new features that directly competed with Ryze's core product, a tool designed to manage Google and Meta ads. 

Bodnar explained that Ryze had gained several hundred paying clients in just two months and maintained a 70% deal close rate. However, following the update to Claude, Ryze's close rate plummeted from 70% to 20%, as the AI's native automation made Ryze's specialised category redundant. 

"I woke up today, and Claude killed my startup. We got several hundred paying clients in 2 months, it was growing like crazy. One Claude/Manus feature and our close rate dropped from 70% to 20%. Claude just made our entire product category obsolete," she wrote in a post.

"We built an AI agent that automates ad management for you. Like, you can give it access to all your Google and Meta accounts, and it will manage them for you. Pretty cool. Customers loved it. Claude and Manus both released connectors for Meta Ads. Claude still can't make changes in ad accounts — it can only do analysis, and it has no access to Google Ads. But give it a few months, and it will. So building here feels pointless," she added.

See the post here:

https://t.co/wQh3RL5Fx3

— Ira Bodnar (@irabukht) February 23, 2026

Anticipating this shift, Bodnar and her team began pivoting Ryze weeks ago. The company now focuses on building complex AI workflows for large advertising agencies that manage hundreds of accounts with minimal staff. Bodnar remains optimistic, suggesting that while AI makes building products easier, human "taste" and distribution strategy are the new competitive moats.

"Our current business will be fine anyway. We knew what was coming and started actively pivoting a few weeks ago," she said. 

She also raised concerns about social media, predicting that most content platforms will soon be dominated by artificial activity. She estimates that nearly 98% of videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram could soon be AI-generated and artificially boosted. According to her, success will depend less on creativity and more on understanding algorithms and scaling content volume.

Claude AI is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Anthropic, designed to be "helpful and harmless." It's known for its ability to understand context, generate human-like responses, and assist with various tasks, from planning and writing to coding and conversation.