How can today’s AI help first-time founders? Insights from an expert
What is Red Bull Basement?
AI tools help founders to create a pitch for the Red Bull Basement judges
© Adam Glanzman/Red Bull Content Pool
Who is Hanneke Krekels?
Red Bull Basement and AI in 2026
After partnering in Red Bull Basement 2024, what brings AMD back for this next edition?
For AMD, 2024 was an outstanding experience. Getting together with those young innovators and seeing their great energy every step of the way was really amazing. Everybody was eager to learn, grow and to push the envelope. We strongly believe in the future of AI and what it can bring to everyone, so of course we are back and keen to meet this year’s participants and see their ideas.
An AMD AI tutorial at India’s Red Bull Basement National Final in 2024
© Focus Sports/Red Bull Content Pool
The capabilities of AI seem to have evolved exponentially since then. Would you say we are now truly in an AI era?
Yes, we are in an AI era. AI models are no longer research curiosities; they are pervasive building blocks in products, operations and infrastructure.
What do the advancements in AI mean for start-up founders who are just beginning their journey?
For grassroots founders, this changes the start-up landscape in practical, immediate ways. For example, powerful pre-trained models and APIs – application programming interfaces that analyse data from text and/or images, audio, video and so on – are broadly available to everyone. That makes prototyping capabilities much higher: you can go from idea to workable prototype in days rather than months. So, it’s possible to build MVPs [minimum viable products] quickly to test real customer demand before investing heavily.
I think now is the best time for a resourceful, scrappy founder to make something big – either on their own or with the team of their dreams.
I think now is the best time for a resourceful, scrappy founder to make something big
How can AI help to make my idea a reality?
Let’s say that I have entrepreneurial ambitions but I haven’t crystallised my thoughts around a single idea. Can AI help me?
Sure, and actually a great tool for that can be found on the Red Bull Basement website. The Red Bull Basement AI Application Tool, powered by Microsoft, uses Azure OpenAI Service which includes AMD Instinct™ GPUs and AMD EPYC™ CPUs as part of its hardware infrastructure, to assist teams in developing ideas and creating business plans. The AMD components are integral to the service’s ability to handle complex AI workloads efficiently.
What does that AI capability mean in practice?
If you still need an idea, you can use the AI Application Tool to select different areas that you are passionate about, and it will suggest related challenges that you can solve, as well as approaches that you might want to consider. Of course it will not deliver a 100 percent done idea, but it’s a great tool to streamline thoughts, pick specific challenges you want to solve with your idea and narrow things down.
You mentioned business plans. What if I already have an idea I want to develop – should I use AI to help put together my business plan?
You should be using AI to help accelerate your work wherever you can. Have a conversation with AI about your goals before you write a business plan. This helps think about the problem you want to solve and can offer a new perspective on organisation and structure.
A good example is the Red Bull Basement webpage, where you can enter your idea and the AI Application Tool will help you to refine it and formulate a one-page pitch.
And even if you’re already set with your business plan, use AI as a sparring partner. See if similar ideas already exist in the market and how far you can improve or scale the approach to solving a problem.
Networking opportunities are another important part of Red Bull Basement
© Maxim Malov/Red Bull Content Pool
How can I ensure I'm getting the most out of AI?
What kind of hardware can help facilitate working with AI at the start-up level?
Of course details can vary depending on the requirements of the specific solution you’re developing, but as an example, the national winners of Red Bull Basement will all receive an HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 with an AMD Radeon GPU and a Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 390 processor.
This is a super beefy and powerful laptop for AI – just take a look at the specs: It combines a high-performance CPU, integrated GPU and a dedicated on-die neural processing engine (NPU). You’ll get fast, power-efficient on-device inference, low latency for real-time features like for AI audio, the ability to run many open-source models locally (speech, vision, SLMs), and better multitasking during AI workloads than a CPU-only laptop. This laptop also comes with Copilot+, which offers even more great on-device AI tools.
More tips and inspiration for first-time founders
By combining an unsolved problem or challenge with AI technology, you can build an MVP that proves value to real users
Finally, what’s the best approach for any start-up founder to begin unlocking the power and potential of AI?
For AI, you not only need to know the problem you’re solving, but you also need to understand the technology you’re working with.
First, define a problem that AI can solve for: We have a strong example in 2024’s Red Bull Basement winner AgriConnect. Soj Gamayon saw a problem inspired by the needs of rice farmers, like his uncle. It was a real, clear, high-value problem that he was curious enough to deeply understand.
On the technology side, learn about AI. Get curious. Plenty of AI educational resources are out there to help you understand how technological capabilities can come together to develop a vision that will stand the test of time and be future-ready.
That’s another way that participating in events like Red Bull Basement can be helpful. Aside from providing hardware, AMD will also provide the innovators at the World Final with AI workshops to widen their knowledge of useful tools and the latest AI functions on their devices.
In short, by combining an unsolved problem or challenge with AI technology, you can build an MVP that proves value to real users.