Dennis Xu has founded several tech startups, but he is the first to admit that he is not a programmer.
Dennis Xu, who co-founded AI note-taking application Mem – one of OpenAI’s earliest venture investments – has launched a new company called Adaptive Computer. Its grandiose goal is nothing less than the complete reimagining personal computer software. He wants non-programmers using apps they created themselves by simply entering a text prompt in Adaptive’s web-app platform.
In order to make this happen, Xu, along with co-founder Mike Soylu, just announced a seed round of $7 million, led by Pebblebed, with participation from Conviction Weekend Fund, Jake Paul’s Anti Fund and Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki. Pebblebed is a seed fund that was founded by Pamela Vagata (an AI engineer who worked at Stripe) and Keith Adams (former chief architect at Slack).
Before LLMs, Xu had to work with designers who, in turn, worked with engineers to “basically influence people” to build what he envisioned. (He left Mem 2023.)
Now, he says, “we would be able to put a little something in everyone’s pocket so they could build the personal computer that they dream of.”
Despite the name of the company, this is not about the computer or any hardware. The startup only builds web applications at the moment.
Adaptive Computer’s engine can create apps with AI features like image generation, speech synthesis and content analysis. It also handles user authentication and file management.
I asked for a bicycle log app when I demoed ac1, a product that is still in alpha mode (meaning there are limited features and functionality). A minute later, It built a JavaScript based appcomplete with a back-end database without any further configuration on my part.
Although this app did not integrate with third-party service providers like my fitness watch it added features such as sorting rides, calculating total distance and comparing rides. This was a fully-functional website, not a prototyping, that could be used by others to log their rides without sharing my personal information.
For non-programmers who are true
Adaptive Computer, which allows you to write code using text prompts, is not the first or only platform that offers this type of “vibe coding”.
Replit, a competitor, claims to have 30 million users but has started to cater to nonprogrammers in such a way that Amjad Masad’s CEO made X a hotbed of controversy by stating on X X last month. I no longer believe you should learn to program.”
Lovable is fast on their heels, claiming that its vibe coding project not only is good for non-programmers but is better for designing than Figma. The Swedish startup claims to have grown its customer base from $10 million in ARR within its first 60-days.
Xu claims that the main difference between his startup and these more established products is that they were originally designed to make programming easier for programmers. Non-programmers may have difficulty using them. Xu says that if you try to build an AI tool using either, they will ask for API keys. This is because these details are what cause difficulty for non-programmers. “We’re creating for people who are interested in creating things that will improve their lives.” Their users are people that build apps for others.”
In addition to taking care of back-end databases and other technical details Adaptive apps are able to work together. A user can create a file-hosting application and the next app will be able to access it.
Xu compares this to an “operating-system” rather than a Web app.
Some of the other apps created by early users are a coffee bean ecommerce site, a text to speech reader for PDF files, and AI generated storytelling.
Adaptive Computer offers three subscription levels. There is a limited-time free version, a $20/month tier, and a $100/month Creator/Pro. Here’s a sneak peek.
