How AI-made do YC startup homepages look?

We checked the homepages of 819 companies from Y Combinator's four 2026 batches with the same free check this site runs. It looks for design habits that make a site look made by AI. 705 loaded and were scored. These are the totals. No company is named or ranked.

  • 87.4%show at least one AI-look pattern616 of 705 homepages
  • 78.2average score out of 100median 84, from 705 homepages
  • 37.2%use one of the overused fonts262 of 705 homepages
  • 12.6%score a clean 10089 of 705 homepages

The habits that cost points

Each pattern found takes points off a score of 100, 8 for most of them. The average homepage shows 2.7 of the 31 patterns. The bars show the share of the 705 homepages that loaded with each one.

  1. Overused font37.2%262 of 705
  2. Nested cards30.9%218 of 705
  3. Glowing shadow accents28.9%204 of 705
  4. Kicker / eyebrow label above heading28.9%204 of 705
  5. Auto-scrolling marquee20.4%144 of 705
  6. AI color palette16.6%117 of 705
  7. Decorative radial spotlight glow14.9%105 of 705
  8. Cream / beige palette14.3%101 of 705
  9. Crushed letter spacing14.2%100 of 705
  10. Bounce or elastic easing13.0%92 of 705

Five changes that would lift the most scores

The five most common patterns, each with the fix the free check gives for it.

  1. Overused font

    37.2%, 262 of 705 homepages

    Replace Inter, Roboto, Geist, Fraunces, Plus Jakarta Sans or Space Grotesk with a less common face that suits the brand, and pair it with one body face.

  2. Nested cards

    30.9%, 218 of 705 homepages

    Flatten cards inside cards. Keep the outer section plain and use spacing, headings and dividers to group the items.

  3. Glowing shadow accents

    28.9%, 204 of 705 homepages

    Remove zero-offset coloured box-shadow and text-shadow glows. Use a soft neutral shadow with a vertical offset for elevation.

  4. Kicker / eyebrow label above heading

    28.9%, 204 of 705 homepages

    Delete the small tracked label sitting above each heading. If the words matter, fold them into the heading or the first sentence.

  5. Auto-scrolling marquee

    20.4%, 144 of 705 homepages

    Replace the auto-scrolling marquee with a static row, or scroll it with the page and stop it when not visible. Respect prefers-reduced-motion.

The same few fonts

37.2% of the 705 homepages that loaded (262) use a face the check counts as overused as their main font. Inter alone is on 124.

  1. Inter17.6%124 of 705
  2. Geist8.2%58 of 705
  3. Geist Mono2.7%19 of 705
  4. Instrument Sans2.6%18 of 705
  5. Plus Jakarta Sans2.1%15 of 705
  6. Arial0.9%6 of 705

Gradient text and glows

Two of the easiest habits to spot. Gradient text fades from one colour to another, and a glow is a coloured light around a box or a word. A homepage counts once, wherever on the page it appears.

  • 9.9%gradient text70 of 705 homepages
  • 28.9%glowing shadows204 of 705 homepages
  • 33.8%one or both238 of 705 homepages

How the scores spread

Share of the 705 homepages that loaded in each band.

  1. 10012.6%89 of 705
  2. 90 to 9918.2%128 of 705
  3. 80 to 8920.6%145 of 705
  4. 70 to 7918.4%130 of 705
  5. 60 to 6919.9%140 of 705
  6. Under 6010.4%73 of 705

By batch

Every batch has more than 150 homepages with a score. The averages sit within 4 points of each other, too close to read a trend into.

BatchIn the listScoredAverageMedian
Winter 202619115978.984
Spring 202618816177.276
Summer 20262282038084
Fall 202621218276.476

How we checked

The list

Every active company with a website in YC's Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall 2026 batches, from a public mirror of the YC directory taken on 6 November 2026. 830 were listed, 11 were left out because they were inactive, acquired or had no website, and 819 were checked.

The check

An automated test for 31 visual patterns that make sites look generated, run on each homepage at desktop and mobile width with the open-source Impeccable detector. It uses the same detector, rules and scoring as the free check on this site.

How the sites were visited

We read the robots.txt of each listed site first and skipped any that refused us. Each site was scanned once, and a second time only after a timeout or a failure on our side, never two at once. Every visit named this report and linked to it in its user agent. One difference from the free check: this browser identified itself as Chrome, where the free check's says it is headless.

What was not scored

114 homepages are counted here and left out of every share: 109 did not finish loading in time, including on a second try, 2 blocked automated visits, 1 refused us in robots.txt, 1 could not be reached and 1 was too large to check.

What a score means

A low score means the patterns are on the page. It does not mean the site was made with AI, or that the product or the team behind it is any less good. Scores are from one date, and a homepage checked today may score differently.

Questions about this report

Does a low score mean a site was made with AI?
No. The check looks for visual patterns, not for how a page was built. A low score means several of those patterns are on the page. A hand-built site can have them and an AI-built site can avoid them.
Which YC companies were checked?
Every active company with a website in the Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall 2026 batches, 819 in all. 705 homepages loaded and were scored.
Can I see one company's score?
Not here. This report publishes totals only and names no company. To see a score for a homepage, run the free check on it. You get the score and what to change.
What counts as an overused font?
A face the detector treats as the default of generated sites, used as a page's main font. On these homepages the most common were Inter, Geist, Geist Mono and Instrument Sans.
How is the score worked out?
Each homepage starts at 100 and loses points for every pattern found at either width, 8 for most of them. 12.6% of the homepages that loaded kept all 100.
Can I quote these numbers?
Yes. Please link to this page and give the date, 9 November 2026, since sites change. For anything else, write to support@nightmarquee.com.

Check your own homepage

The same test, free, at desktop and mobile width, with what to change.

Or start from a scene that already scores 100

Run the free check