RightNow AI: Product, team and how it was built
RightNow AI (Decision API: a model that returns a choice with a probability for every option, billed per token, United States): Pay-as-you-go billing open, November 2026. Evidence grade E: no revenue figure was checked. Team: 2 founders and a team size of 2, as listed by Y Combinator. Launched 15 October 2026; still running.Added
- Outcome
- Pay-as-you-go billing open, November 2026
- Evidence
- E no revenue figure was checked
- Launch
- 15 October 2026
- Status
- Still running
- Team
- 2 founders and a team size of 2, as listed by Y Combinator
- Outside funding
- Y Combinator Fall 2026; no amount published
- Main channel
- Not stated
What is not verified
No revenue figure was found. The pages read were the company's home, terms, privacy, research, billing and release-notes pages, its blog, Y Combinator's company page and an arXiv listing. Internet Archive copies of the site were read too. They show a price list, open billing and Stripe checkout. No source states that a customer has paid. The checkout was not tested. The terms say users of the earlier no-charge version get at least 30 days' notice before charges. A reader could look for a payment-processor profile, a customer case study or a founder interview. This story is grade E: the business is real and its product, price and customers are described from public pages, but no revenue figure was checked. Aiolum shows it as an idea worth studying, not as proof that it makes money.
RightNow AI sells System Zero, a decision model: a model that answers a fixed question with a choice and a probability for each option. A developer sends a state and named questions over an API, a web interface that programs call. The company says the model can decide on partial input, so the answer changes as text, images or audio arrive.
Y Combinator lists two founders, Jaber Jaber and Osama Jaber. It gives 2025 as the founding year, a team size of 2 and the Fall 2026 batch. System Zero is not the company's first product. An Internet Archive copy of 6 March 2025 shows the same site selling an AI optimizer for CUDA code, NVIDIA's programming system for graphics processors.
No revenue figure was found, so this story has grade E. The release notes date the System Zero launch and open billing to 15 October 2026, and the privacy policy names Stripe for checkout. No source states that a customer has paid.
Why did RightNow AI work?
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
It returns a probability for every option instead of text
The announcement post says System Zero does not write text. It returns a decision with a probability for every option, a confidence and a calibration version. The post says the model updates the probabilities as each part of the input arrives. These are the company's descriptions, and no source reports customer results.
It charges per token and does not charge for output
The billing page lists a price per million input tokens, a small fee per answered question and a fee per answered call. It lists output as US$0 and says refused calls are not charged. A buyer can estimate a monthly cost from the calculator on the home page.
The company has a research record behind the product
The research page lists six papers by the two founders and three open-source repositories. The announcement calls the model the first checkpoint of the company's post-trained models. How much of this research went into System Zero is not stated in any downloaded page.
How it was built
These details come from the company's documentation, release notes and privacy policy. They are grade C. [9, 1, 6, 5]
- The API takes up to 1,024 questions and up to 38,000 state tokens per call, according to the announcement post.
- Inputs are text, JSON, robot state, codebases, PDF, images, voice and video (preview). Audio is WAV at 16 kHz, and video is limited to 10 seconds.
- The privacy policy says the company hosts its own System Zero model. It names Stripe for checkout and Google and GitHub for sign-in.
- SDKs are listed as @rightnowai/system-zero on npm and rightnow-system-zero on PyPI. Release notes give SDK version 0.4.7.
Who tried this before RightNow AI, and why did they fail?
Three companies in our database of failed startups sold AI automation, AI research software or an AI chip and closed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.
Olive AI
The promiseSoftware bots that would automate hospital paperwork such as prior authorizations and claims.
Why it diedThe page says it sold autonomous AI while the work was manual integration. It says each customer cost more to serve than it paid.
Rain AI
The promiseBrain-like AI chips for low-power inference, aimed at replacing GPUs.
Why it diedThe page says it spent US$118M before it showed a clear advantage on real workloads. It adds that developers could not easily move models onto the chip.
ROSS Intelligence
The promiseAI legal research that finds relevant case law faster than a lawyer.
Why it diedThe page says lawyers stayed with Westlaw and LexisNexis. It says investors were hesitant to keep funding a long sales cycle.
The failed startups come from our database of 1,749 dead startups, retold here in our own words. Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so these cards carry no evidence grade.
What changed
Each of the three sold AI as a replacement for a whole workflow or a whole chip. The records give overpromising, a missing software ecosystem and strong incumbents as causes. RightNow AI sells a narrower part: one decision per question, priced per token, through an API.
That is the company's design, and no source shows that it earns money. The pay-as-you-go price list makes a small first trial cheap. The two founders are the whole team that Y Combinator lists, so cost is low, but the page does not say who the customers are.
Can one person copy RightNow AI now?
Not shown yet.
No source shows that this business earns money, so a reader cannot yet copy a result. What can be described is the pricing structure: a prepaid balance, a per-token price with no output charge, and a free starting credit.
Where it is still open: Any repeated yes-or-no or multiple-choice judgment that a program now makes with a long prompt, such as routing a support message or checking a document.
- 1Sell one narrow function through an API, and publish a price card with a worked example of a cost.
- 2Charge from a prepaid balance with a small minimum top-up, so the first test costs little.
- 3Do not charge for refused or failed calls, and say so on the price page.
How much revenue does RightNow AI make?
Each row shows the evidence grade and the source numbers from the list at the end of this page. The grades are explained in How Aiolum verifies.
| Fact | Value | Grade | How we know | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company founded | 2025 | C | Y Combinator's company page says "Founded: 2025", "Batch: Fall 2026" and "Team Size: 2". The company's own pages give no earlier year. | [3] |
| Founders listed | Jaber Jaber and Osama Jaber | C | Y Combinator lists them as active founders, a technical co-founder and a commercial co-founder. Both names also appear as authors on the company's research page. | [3, 7] |
| Earlier products of the company | CUDA code optimizer on sale by 6 March 2025; "GPU AI Code Editor" by 5 August 2025 | B | Internet Archive copies of the company's site. The copy of 6 March 2025 is the earliest one and lists plans at $6, $14 and $49. The copy of 5 August 2025 is titled "GPU AI Code Editor for CUDA" and says the editor "is completely FREE during the preview period". The GitHub organization still uses that description. | [13, 10] |
| System Zero launch | 15 October 2026 | C | Release notes: "RightNow System Zero launch", with a playground and "Billing is open" on the same date. | [5] |
| Billing status | open, from a prepaid balance | C | The billing page says "Billing is open". The terms say usage "is paid from your workspace's prepaid balance", with optional auto-recharge on a saved card. | [4, 2] |
| Payment processor named | Stripe | C | The privacy policy says Stripe "is named because you use its checkout to pay" and handles prepaid credit purchases and auto-recharge. | [6] |
| Text price | US$0.19 per million fresh input tokens | C | Price card G, 27 October 2026. Cached text is US$0.019. The home page calculator uses the same rates. | [4, 1] |
| Starting credit and top-up | US$1 free at sign-up; top-ups from US$5 | C | Announcement post and billing page. Purchased credit expires 12 months after purchase. | [9, 4] |
| Check of a reference cost | 38,000 tokens with one question costs US$0.007405 | calc | Calculated: 38,000 divided by 1,000,000 times 0.19, plus 0.00013, plus 0.000055. It matches the 0.007405 on the billing page. | [4] |
| Benchmark score | 63.20 on a decision index, measured by the company | C | The company says it measured this on 28 October 2026 on a public held-out half and that it is "not an Artificial Analysis evaluation". The cost column for its own row says Pending. | [9, 1] |
| Funding | Y Combinator, amount not published | C | The home page says "Backed by Y Combinator". No downloaded page gives a round size. | [1, 3] |
| Open-source repositories | OpenFang 18,209 stars; PicoLM 2,193; AutoKernel 1,564 | C | The company's research page gives these as a GitHub API count of 21 September 2026 and calls the chart "illustrative". | [7] |
How to read this table. Grade C is a statement by the company or a page it runs, or by Y Combinator about the company. Grade B is a record kept by a third party. A grade E story has no dated money figure, so no row here is a revenue number.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fresh text input | 0.19 per million tokens | pay as you go | |
| Cached text input | 0.019 per million tokens | a text token whose earlier processing is reused | |
| Answered question | 0.00013 per question | refused questions are not charged | |
| Call fee | 0.000055 per answered call | once per call with at least one answered question | |
| Image | 0.011 per image | PNG or JPEG | |
| 0.011 per page | minimum 0.0055 per file | ||
| Audio | 0.00036666667 per second | WAV, minimum 50 seconds | |
| Video (preview) | 0.0018 per second | minimum 0.018 per clip, clips up to 10 seconds | |
| Output | 0 | not charged |
All prices are in US dollars and are paid from a prepaid balance. Output is not charged. The company says the call fee is never charged on refusals, zero-answer calls, or free, promotional or replay calls. New accounts get US$1 in credit at sign-up, and top-ups start at US$5. The terms say a separate written agreement can set other terms for enterprise buyers.
When did RightNow AI launch, and how did it grow?
From the earliest archived copy of the site in March 2025 to the only served model version in November 2026. Each entry carries its grade.
- 6 March 2025BThe earliest Internet Archive copy of the site shows an AI optimizer for CUDA code with paid plans. [13]
- 5 August 2025BAn archived pricing page calls the product a "GPU AI Code Editor" in a free preview. The earliest dated blog post follows on 21 August 2025. [13, 8]
- 22 March 2026BarXiv receives the AutoKernel paper by Jaber Jaber and Osama Jaber on GPU kernel optimization. [11]
- 15 October 2026CThe release notes record the System Zero launch and the opening of billing. [5]
- 30 October 2026CThe blog announces System Zero as the company's first decision model. Price card G is dated 27 October 2026. [8, 9, 5]
- 9 November 2026CRelease notes: version system-zero-3.0.0 is the only served version. Terms version 2026-11-11 follows two days later. [5, 2]
What could go wrong for RightNow AI?
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
What is not verified
No revenue figure was found. The pages read were the company's home, terms, privacy, research, billing and release-notes pages, its blog, Y Combinator's company page and an arXiv listing. Internet Archive copies of the site were read too. They show a price list, open billing and Stripe checkout. No source states that a customer has paid. The checkout was not tested. The terms say users of the earlier no-charge version get at least 30 days' notice before charges. A reader could look for a payment-processor profile, a customer case study or a founder interview.
Logos, an endorsement, counters and a badge
The home page shows six logos under "our research used by": NVIDIA, Modal, Samsung, Reddit, together.ai and Hugging Face. The research page shows six logos, among them Meta, Google, Runway and AMD. No page says what each one uses or pays. The research page carries a video endorsement from an unnamed "Director of Accelerated Computing, NVIDIA". Its star counts are dated 21 September 2026 and called illustrative. Both pages show an "NVIDIA Inception Program" badge with no listing to confirm it. A "SOC 2 Type 2" badge links to the company's trust page, which says "Compliant" and lists 0 documents.
Start of the company, earlier products and where it is based
System Zero is a new product of a company that sold other products first. Y Combinator gives 2025 as the founding year, and the earliest Internet Archive copy of the site is from 6 March 2025. That copy sells a CUDA code optimizer, and a copy of 5 August 2025 shows a "GPU AI Code Editor" in a free preview. An archive date shows when a page existed, not when the product started. Y Combinator's page names RunInfra, at runinfra.ai, as the company's platform for hosted open models, and does not name System Zero. The country is not certain. The terms say the company is "registered in Delaware, United States", Y Combinator lists San Francisco and the GitHub organization lists Jordan.
Benchmark and price notes
The score of 63.20 was measured by the company on a public held-out half and is not an Artificial Analysis evaluation. The company does not give its cost per million tasks and shows Pending. The other rows of the table come from a different evaluation, so the order is only indicative, as the page itself says.
Sources
The grade next to each source is the best grade that the source can support. "Read in full" means that the text of the page was downloaded and the numbers were checked in it.
- C RightNow System Zero home pageRead in full, 12 November 2026. Source for the product, the logos, the calculator, the benchmark table and "Backed by Y Combinator".
- C RightNow AI terms of use, version terms-2026-11-11Read in full, 12 November 2026. Source for prepaid credits, auto-recharge, the 30-day notice, the age limit and the Delaware registration.
- C Y Combinator company page: RightNowRead in full, 12 November 2026. Source for the founders, the founding year 2025, the Fall 2026 batch and the team size of 2.
- C RightNow System Zero docs: Billing and creditsRead in full, 12 November 2026. Updated 2026-11-10. Source for open billing, the price card, the minimum purchase and credit expiry.
- C RightNow System Zero docs: Release notesRead in full, 12 November 2026. Updated 2026-11-11. Source for the launch date, the price card date and the served version.
- C RightNow AI privacy policy, version 2026-11-07Read the section on who receives information, 12 November 2026. Source for Stripe checkout and the hosting of the model.
- C RightNow Research pageRead in full, 12 November 2026. Source for the papers, the repositories, the star counts and the unnamed endorsement.
- C RightNow blog indexRead in full, 12 November 2026. Source for the post dates of 21 August 2025, 13 October 2025 and 30 October 2026.
- C RightNow System Zero, announcement post, 30 October 2026Read in full, 12 November 2026. Source for the design, the limits, the benchmark note and the price table.
- C GitHub organization RightNow-AIRead the profile section, 12 November 2026. Source for the "GPU AI Code Editor" description and the listed location.
- B arXiv 2603.21331: AutoKernelRead the listing, 12 November 2026. Source for the submission date of 22 March 2026 and the two authors.
- C Database of failed startups, local exportRecord pages read on the website on 12 November 2026. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.
- B Internet Archive copies of rightnowai.co, 6 March 2025 and 5 August 2025Read the home page copy of 6 March 2025 and the pricing page copy of 5 August 2025, on 12 November 2026. Source for the earlier products and their dates.
Run this company? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com