A startup called Pig.dev that took part in Y Combinators Winter 2025 batch was working on a possibly advanced concept: AI agentic tech to control a Microsoft Windows desktop.But in May, the creator announced he was deserting the tech and rotating his company to something totally different: Muscle Mem, a cache system for AI representatives that permits them to offload repeatable tasks.An early-stage YC company rotating is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, of course.
Whats intriguing and what stimulated a dynamic discussion on Thursdays Y Combinator podcast is that Pig was dealing with computer use, one of the big areas that needs to be fixed for representatives to be genuinely useful in the workforce.
Another business and another YC alum that is tackling that for the web browser is called Browser Use.Browser Use surged to appeal when the Chinese agentic tool Manus, which count on it, went viral.
Browser Use basically scans the buttons and aspects of a site to turn them into a more absorbable, text-like format for agents, assisting the AI understand how to browse and utilize the website.During the Y Combinator podcast, released Thursday, partner Tom Blomfield compared Pig to the Browser Use for Windows desktops.The podcast featured Amjad Masad, the creator and CEO of popular vibe-coding start-up Replit.Masad, Blomfield, and YC partner David Lieb were talking about how long-term computer usage of hours, rather than minutes, was still a stumbling block for agents.
As the context window for reasoning grows, a representatives precision fluctuates while LLM expenses increase.The guidance I would provide creators today is taking either Browser Use or Windows automation with Pig and attempting to use that into business, into a vertical industry, Blomfield suggested.Techcrunch eventSan Francisco|October 27-29, 2025Masad agreed.
The moment that innovation works, those 2 companies are going to do really, truly well, he said.But alas, Pigs creator Erik Dunteman has already given up on the concept.
In his post in May, he discussed that he in the beginning wanted to run a cloud API product (a typical method of delivering AI tech).
His consumers didnt desire that.
He tried selling it as a dev tool.
And they didnt want that either.What users in the legacy app automation area really want is to hand me money, and get an automation, he said.
Essentially, they wished to hire an expert to make their wanted Windows robotic procedure automations work for them.But Dunteman didnt want to do one-off projects.
He wanted to develop development tools.
He deserted Pig and began working on an AI caching tool.
Dunteman declined additional comment about his choice to ditch Windows automation, although the Pig.dev website and GitHub documents remain available.However, Dunteman did tell us his brand-new tool was inspired by the computer system usage problem.
It is chipping away at it from another angle.
The idea is to allow the agent to unload repeated jobs to the Muscle Mem service so the agent can focus on reasoning for new problems and edge cases.What were dealing with now is straight inspired by and appropriate to computer use, just at the developer tooling layer.
I remain extremely positive for computer system usage as the last mile, he told A Technology NewsRoom.Thats not to say that no one is working on Windows automation.Probably the company outermost along on that is Microsoft.
For example, in April, Microsoft announced it included computer system usage tech to Copilot Studio for visual user interfaces like Windows.
That tech was launched as a research sneak peek.
Plus, previously this month, Microsoft revealed an agentic tool in Windows 11 that assists end users handle settings.