Ricursive Intelligence is betting on AI-designed chips to help solve the compute crisis; plus, Gudea leverages AI to help organizations prevent social media crises before they erupt

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1:13That's Framer.com slash tcstartups. Rules and restrictions may apply. Recursive Intelligence founders Anna Goldie and Azalea Maricini believe more efficient AI chip design could help solve the compute crisis. The founders took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday to detail how their startup is developing AI that can design chips, learn from each iteration, and improve subsequent designs, all with the goal of automating and accelerating the chip design process. Goldie said, there is this understanding that in the next five years, we are going to have at least 10 ,000x more demand for compute, and that's somewhat potentially conservative.

1:57So we don't want to build 10 ,000 times more data centers. We think that we need to help by making chips that are more efficient, that use the bandwidth in those data centers more efficiently, that use the wafers and fabs more efficiently. While some may be scared by the thought of AI designing its own chips, Goldie argues that letting AI handle chip design will allow humans to focus on developing applications and exploring new possibilities that can expand what they can accomplish with computing. I think the way everything is shifting is that humans bring their great ideas and creative thoughts and execution is handled by AI, Goldie said, and this is happening in chip design, software development, and other places, and that's something that Recursive does for chip design.

2:45The founders say AI is challenging traditional chip design methods by discovering unconventional layouts that can outperform traditional ones. For example, AlphaChip, the AI system the founders previously developed, produced a circular donut-shaped arrangement of chip components that initially surprised engineers, but ultimately proved to be successful. They explained that they are optimizing entire chips rather than following the traditional approach of partitioning them into dozens of smaller blocks. This approach allows AI to create intricate patterns, including wave-like designs, which the pair said they plan to share more about in the future.

3:27The founders also argued that AI-designed chips will make it possible to create all sorts of chips that might not have been possible before. Goldie said, if it takes six months or a year or two years to design a new chip, then you really have to be extremely selective about the chips that you design. But if you can design a chip in like a week, and then say for manufacturing, you can design custom chips for all sorts of different types of applications in space and AR, VR and biological computing, it makes sense financially to do that. And we can be more energy efficient.

4:06Every day, conversations unfold across social media and websites around the world. A seemingly insignificant post, whether it involves AI-generated misinformation, hate speech, or a damaging rumor, can quickly snowball into a much larger public controversy. Gudea, a company that tracks how stories and rumors spread online that describes itself as the storm tracker for the Internet, is using AI to help organizations spot trouble brewing online before it turns into a crisis. Unlike traditional social listening platforms, which only track metrics such as mentions, hashtags, and impressions, Gudea aims to show organizations who's driving the conversation, how information is moving, how quickly a story is gaining traction, and where it could be headed.

4:58Rather than simply tallying posts, its AI analyzes behavior, relationships, and the pathways through which information travels across more than 500 mainstream and fringe websites and platforms, including X, Reddit, and TikTok. Instead of simply telling a company that mentions are rising, Gudea aims to provide the context behind that growth so decision makers can determine how and whether to respond. Gudea pitched its mission Wednesday afternoon on the startup battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where the company made the case that companies need to take a more proactive approach to protecting their reputations.

5:40CEO and founder Keith Presley said, these big industries don't understand that there are things they can do proactively to defend their reputation and their brand. A lot of the chief communications officers and chief media or marketing officers, they're using legacy tools to try to figure out what's happening. Those tools were only ever designed to tell you the number of hashtags or number of impressions. Gudea was founded in 2023 by Presley, Jonathan Sperber, and James Toman. Presley brings more than 15 years of experience spanning political campaigns and defense, including building the infrastructure for Andrew Yang's presidential campaign.

6:21Sperber, the company's chief strategy officer, has a background in disinformation research. Toman, Gudea's CTO, holds a PhD in chemical engineering and has spent roughly two decades working in AI and machine learning. Presley called the company's path to becoming a startup unusual. He said, we're one of those weird startups where I never wanted to do a company. The team began with the George Washington Initiative, a nonprofit established after the 2020 election. the organization adapted strategies and tactics that the intelligence community has used overseas to disrupt online networks tied to groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS.

7:02It applied them to domestic information campaigns. The goal was to identify the online environments where information campaigns were taking shape and disrupt the pathways that allowed those narratives to reach wider audiences. However, the team found that existing tools did not show how information was actually moving across people, groups, and platforms. That gap became the opening for Gudea. Three years after its founding, Gudea has nearly 40 clients. According to Presley, its customer base includes a Fortune 50 telecommunications company, a Fortune 50 retailer, one of the largest AI labs in the world, one of the world's largest bands, public relations and crisis communications agencies and government agencies.

7:51With the rise of generative AI, Presley believes that the need for Gadea's technology has only grown as the company looks to expand its customer base. AI tools have dramatically lowered the cost and effort required to generate content and coordinate online campaigns. What once required a larger organization can increasingly be carried out by a single person with a laptop and access to the right software. Presley said, when we first started in 2021 and then as a company in 2023, we maybe saw one out of four things we looked at have inauthentic activity around it. Now, it's probably nine out of ten things that we look at have this inauthentic activity.

8:35Looking further ahead, Gudea plans to expand its ability to understand where narratives originate and how they spread. One major upcoming initiative is geolocation for narratives. Slated for next year, the technology is intended to allow users to identify where conversations are happening with far greater precision, down to the city block level. The company also wants to give customers greater access to the tools behind its analysis. For example, a company could eventually run an advertising campaign through Gudea's AI model before launching it and get a better idea of whether the strategy is likely to produce a negative outcome or not.

9:16Last week, Gudea announced that it had raised$7 million in seed funding and a round co-led by Medita Venture Partners and Silicon Road Ventures. the investment brings the startup's total funding to approximately$15 million. That's all for now. For the latest in startup tech news, go to TechCrunch.com.

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