Why a Y Combinator startup tackling AI agents for Windows gave up and pivoted

A startup called Pig.dev that participated successful Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 batch was moving connected a imaginable revolutionary idea: AI agentic tech to power a Microsoft Windows desktop.

But successful May, the founder announced helium was abandoning the tech and pivoting his institution to thing wholly different: Muscle Mem, a cache strategy for AI agents that allows them to offload repeatable tasks. 

An early-stage YC institution pivoting is thing retired of the ordinary, of course. What’s absorbing — and what sparked a dynamic speech connected Thursday’s Y Combinator podcast — is that Pig was moving connected machine use, 1 of the large areas that needs to beryllium solved for agents to beryllium genuinely utile successful the workforce. Another institution – and different YC alum – that is tackling that for the browser is called Browser Use.

Browser Use surged to popularity erstwhile Chinese agentic instrumentality Manus, which relied connected it, went viral. Browser Use fundamentally scans the buttons and elements of a website to crook them into a much digestible, “text-like” format for agents, helping the AI recognize however to navigate and usage the website.

During the Y Combinator podcast, released Thursday, spouse Tom Blomfield likened Pig arsenic the Browser Use for Windows desktops. The podcast featured Amjad Massad, the laminitis and CEO of fashionable vibe-coding startup Replit.

Massad, Blomfield, and YC spouse David Lieb were discussing however semipermanent machine usage of hours, alternatively than minutes, was inactive a stumbling artifact for agents. As the discourse model for reasoning grows, an agent’s accuracy wavers portion LLM costs increase.

“The proposal I would springiness founders contiguous is taking either Browser Use oregon Windows automation with Pig and trying to use that into enterprise, into a vertical industry,” Blomfield suggested. 

Massad agreed, “The infinitesimal that exertion works, those 2 companies are going to bash really, truly well,” helium said.

But alas, Pig’s laminitis Erik Dunteman has already fixed up connected the idea. In his station successful May helium explained that helium astatine archetypal wanted to tally a unreality API merchandise (a communal mode of delivering AI tech). But his customers didn’t privation that. So helium tried selling it arsenic a dev tool. And they didn’t privation that either. 

“What users successful the bequest app automation abstraction really privation is to manus maine money, and person an automation,” helium said. Essentially, they wanted to prosecute a advisor to marque their desired Windows robotic process automations enactment for them. 

But Dunteman didn’t privation to bash one-off projects. He wanted to physique improvement tools. So helium abandoned Pig and started moving connected an AI caching tool. Dunteman declined further remark astir his determination to ditch Windows automation, though the Pig.dev website and Github documents stay available. 

However, Dunteman did archer america his caller instrumentality was inspired by the machine usage problem. It is chipping distant astatine it from different angle. The thought is to let the cause to offload repeated tasks to the Muscle Mem service, truthful the cause tin absorption connected reasoning for caller problems and borderline cases.

“What we’re moving connected present is straight inspired by and applicable to machine use, conscionable astatine the developer tooling layer. I stay precise optimistic for machine usage arsenic ‘the past mile’,” helium told TechCrunch.

That’s not to accidental that nary 1 is moving connected Windows automation.

Probably the institution farthest on connected that is Microsoft itself. For instance, successful April Microsoft announced it added machine usage tech to Copilot Studio for graphical idiosyncratic interfaces similar Windows. That tech was released arsenic a probe preview.  Plus, earlier this month, Microsoft announced an agentic instrumentality successful Windows 11 that helps extremity users negociate settings.