Yupp offered a crowdsourced AI model-picking service. It allowed consumers to test and compare results from a supply of 800 AI models for free, including the state-of-the-art ones from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Yupp would return multiple replies from the prompt request, including information or images, and users would offer feedback on which models worked best for them and why.

The idea was to generate anonymized data on what people actually need from AI that the model makers would then pay for. Yupp said it signed up 1.3 million users and collected millions of preferences every month. It even had a leaderboard. The company said it also had a few AI labs as customers.

But alas, it “didn’t reach a strong enough product-market fit” to survive, in part because AI models improved by such leaps and bounds these past few months, the founders said.

While labs are paying big bucks for feedback, the current model — pioneered by companies like Scale AI and Mercor — is to hire specialty experts, like PhDs, and tuck them into the reinforcement learning loop.