Should I Build It Should I Build It
10 May 2025
Artificial Intelligence Cooking

Nearly there, we are summarizing our findings for you...An AI-powered ...

...app that lets users take a photo of any dish, automatically identifies the dish using image recognition, and then provides a detailed recipe to recreate it at home. Perfect for food lovers who want to discover new meals or learn how to cook what they see.

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Your idea for an AI-powered recipe app that identifies dishes from photos and provides recipes falls into a crowded space. We found around 20 similar products, which indicates high competition. The IDEA CATEGORY is "Swamp", which means the market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. The average engagement (3 comments) for these similar products is low, suggesting that it's hard to stand out. Given this landscape, launching yet another general-purpose recipe app might be challenging. To succeed, you'll need a compelling differentiator and a strategy to capture user attention in a market filled with similar offerings. Don't get discouraged, but the advice is: don't build it, unless...

Recommendations

  1. First, deeply analyze why existing AI recipe apps haven't achieved widespread adoption. Read user reviews, identify pain points, and understand what's missing in the current solutions. For example, many competing products received feedback about image accuracy, recipe testing and the tastiness of the recipes. Address these key issues in your app. Look at the criticism summaries of similar products to get more granular info.
  2. Instead of targeting everyone, identify a niche audience with specific dietary needs, cultural preferences, or cooking skill levels. For example, you could focus on creating recipes for people with allergies, specific ethnic cuisines, or beginner cooks. The similar app 'Granny cooks for me' received a comment asking about Keto/Vegan support, so consider these diets as a good starting point for niche support.
  3. Consider building AI-powered tools for chefs, restaurants, or food bloggers, instead of a direct-to-consumer recipe app. These tools could help them create new recipes, optimize existing ones, or generate content for their audiences. Collaborate with existing content creators, i.e. instead of competing with them.
  4. Explore adjacent problems that might be more promising. For example, you could develop an AI-powered tool that helps people plan their meals based on their dietary needs, budget, and available ingredients. The similar app 'Fridgeraider' received positive feedback due to the 'AI-assisted cooking and recipe generation using ChatGPT'.
  5. Given the crowded market and the challenges of standing out, it might be wise to save your energy and resources for a better opportunity. Consider exploring other ideas that align with your interests and skills but have less competition and more potential for growth.

Questions

  1. What is the core, unique value proposition that differentiates your AI recipe app from the many existing solutions, and how will you effectively communicate this to potential users?
  2. How will you address the common criticisms and concerns raised by users of similar apps, such as recipe accuracy, tastiness, and dietary customization, to ensure a superior user experience?
  3. Given the low average engagement observed in similar products, what specific marketing and user acquisition strategies will you employ to attract and retain users in a competitive market?

Your are here

Your idea for an AI-powered recipe app that identifies dishes from photos and provides recipes falls into a crowded space. We found around 20 similar products, which indicates high competition. The IDEA CATEGORY is "Swamp", which means the market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. The average engagement (3 comments) for these similar products is low, suggesting that it's hard to stand out. Given this landscape, launching yet another general-purpose recipe app might be challenging. To succeed, you'll need a compelling differentiator and a strategy to capture user attention in a market filled with similar offerings. Don't get discouraged, but the advice is: don't build it, unless...

Recommendations

  1. First, deeply analyze why existing AI recipe apps haven't achieved widespread adoption. Read user reviews, identify pain points, and understand what's missing in the current solutions. For example, many competing products received feedback about image accuracy, recipe testing and the tastiness of the recipes. Address these key issues in your app. Look at the criticism summaries of similar products to get more granular info.
  2. Instead of targeting everyone, identify a niche audience with specific dietary needs, cultural preferences, or cooking skill levels. For example, you could focus on creating recipes for people with allergies, specific ethnic cuisines, or beginner cooks. The similar app 'Granny cooks for me' received a comment asking about Keto/Vegan support, so consider these diets as a good starting point for niche support.
  3. Consider building AI-powered tools for chefs, restaurants, or food bloggers, instead of a direct-to-consumer recipe app. These tools could help them create new recipes, optimize existing ones, or generate content for their audiences. Collaborate with existing content creators, i.e. instead of competing with them.
  4. Explore adjacent problems that might be more promising. For example, you could develop an AI-powered tool that helps people plan their meals based on their dietary needs, budget, and available ingredients. The similar app 'Fridgeraider' received positive feedback due to the 'AI-assisted cooking and recipe generation using ChatGPT'.
  5. Given the crowded market and the challenges of standing out, it might be wise to save your energy and resources for a better opportunity. Consider exploring other ideas that align with your interests and skills but have less competition and more potential for growth.

Questions

  1. What is the core, unique value proposition that differentiates your AI recipe app from the many existing solutions, and how will you effectively communicate this to potential users?
  2. How will you address the common criticisms and concerns raised by users of similar apps, such as recipe accuracy, tastiness, and dietary customization, to ensure a superior user experience?
  3. Given the low average engagement observed in similar products, what specific marketing and user acquisition strategies will you employ to attract and retain users in a competitive market?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 20
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 3
  • Net use signal: 21.9%
    • Positive use signal: 21.9%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

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