7th Annual Survey of AI Startups 2025:
Generative AI and AI-as-a-Service

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Please click here to take the survey.

Boston University, New York University, HEC Paris, and the University of Oxford have released the 7th Annual Survey of AI Startups.

AI is no longer just a fancy buzzword – the integration of generative AI into product development across all sectors of the economy. Many of the latest AI technologies underlying these products make users more productive at work, help find trends in big data, and add compelling new functions that customers value. At the same time, they raise the bar for digital security and help protect consumers.

AI startups like your firm are helping drive this progress! However, AI-focused entrepreneurs face many issues, such as access to training data, compliance with ever-evolving regulations, and raising funds, while trying to develop their initial products. These startups must confront numerous ethical issues concerning AI and big data while making many decisions about underlying technologies. In addition to a better understanding competition in AI entrepreneurship, this survey will help us learn more about how AI startups navigate these uncharted waters.

We have published four reports based on our prior surveys of AI startups. In our inaugural survey in 2019, we focused on the impact of AI on labor. Over the next several years, we have examined the impact of GDPR on AI startups, ethics in AI development, and corporate governance.

Would you be willing to invest 5 minutes answering a few questions about your AI startup? We will provide all respondents with a free summary report in September 2025 to offer additional insight into this developing industry.

Lastly, your responses are confidential. The researchers at the universities conducting the study will not release any personally identifiable or firm-specific information. Only aggregates will be reported.

If you run an AI startup and would like to receive the survey, reach out to Professor Michael Impink (impink@hec.fr).

Please click here to take the survey.