It’s been a bit over a year since I stepped in as CEO of Product Hunt, and with this privileged vantage point, I truly believe there is no better time to be a maker. Every category of application has seen an explosion of creativity and re-imagining. It’s difficult to pick a single launch as my favorite, but instead I’ll pick 3 (coincidentally, all were #3 of the day!) that speak to me, personally. - Rajiv

toby: Live speech translation on any video call with little delay

My last startup, Tandem, unlocked collaboration across distance and timezones. toby’s launch aims to break down language barriers. It’s an ambitious app, difficult to execute well, and uniquely enabled by the latest generation of AI infra. The core innovation here is UX and latency - translation is good enough, but to really be usable, it has to fit seamlessly into your desktop workflows, and have minimal lag. It’s a difficult thing to manage, and I was impressed by the resourcefulness and iteration speed of the small, driven team behind toby.

Airchat: A social walkie-talkie

Realtime conversation is far more connective than asynchronous, and yet social media has remained firmly stuck in async-land, with the brief hiatus for Clubhouse summer (remember clubhouse? It was glorious). Airchat at its best felt like stepping into a conversation. But the conversations were chaotic, multi-threaded, noisy. Social networks are hard, and the near-real-time nature made it even harder, I’m sure, to corral, shape, and grow it into a substantive “3rd place.” That said, the UX was phenomenally well executed, and I’m sure we’ll see elements of it again in future apps.I talked with my friend Kwindla about Airchat, and what they got right, here.

Vapi: Voice AI Infrastructure for the Internet

As AI gets more human-like, typing feels increasingly outdated. Enter Vapi, a team building voice infrastructure with experience from crafting high-quality desktop apps like Superpowered. They’re part of a growing wave of talent tackling voice tech, alongside Justin Uberti (creator of WebRTC, now at OpenAI) and Alexander Embiricos (formerly of Multi and Remotion, now shaping the ChatGPT desktop app).

Vapi’s launch stood out with Shoutouts, spotlighting indispensable tools like Deepgram and Daily.co, both voice pioneers. With a fresh funding round and a bold vision, Vapi is empowering builders to compete with industry giants. Can’t wait to see where audio AI goes next!