AI Gaming Goes Social
Today’s featured startup is building a new way to create and play games through AI-driven social interaction
Project Overview
Today’s startup was founded by the same entrepreneur behind Cruise — the self-driving car startup acquired by General Motors. Cruise’s technology powered autonomous taxis, and GM bought the founders’ stake for $1 billion in 2016, later acquiring SoftBank’s share for $2.1 billion in 2022. The full acquisition was completed this spring. So it’s safe to assume this founder is now building something with multi-billion-dollar potential.
Fifth Door is a platform where anyone can create and play games using AI. The platform hasn’t officially launched yet, but the startup recently announced it raised $20 million in funding.
Essentially, Fifth Door functions like a social network for gamers. Users can create games without programming, modify others’ games, and play both their own and others’ creations — all of which appear on the platform and in users’ feeds daily.
Here’s how the founder explains the platform’s purpose:
As social isolation grows and face-to-face interaction declines, people need fun experiences connected to human relationships more than ever.
Games have always been a way to have fun and build communities, but only trained developers and studios could create them.
Now, with AI, anyone can make games. The line between creator and player is blurring — if you love games, you can now both play and create. You only need imagination.
Fifth Door also allows creating games for small, intimate audiences — family, friends, classmates — with content tailored to them. This, the founder argues, is the future of gaming.
What’s the Gist?
No good idea comes from one person alone. A similar platform, Sagaland, launched out of Y Combinator earlier this year, focusing on “playable books” — text-based adventures users can play and create with AI.
Another example is And Then (from a16z accelerator), where players experience text or voice quests. Human authors craft the story, and AI adapts it individually for each player.
More broadly, startups like Wabi are following the same trend, raising $20 million to build platforms for creating and sharing personalized programs — Fifth Door focuses on games, Wabi on any software. These platforms embody the “disposable software” trend highlighted by a16z: AI makes creation fast, cheap, and accessible to anyone, turning users into creators.
This shift extends beyond software — AI is simplifying video creation, too. OpenAI’s Sora app generates videos from prompts, allowing users to insert themselves or friends into AI-generated content.
Key Takeaways
Many AI platforms now exist for software, games, and video. What sets today’s startups apart is ambition: exploring how AI can reshape social interaction. Could these platforms become new social networks or app stores? Wabi envisions a future where App Store-style platforms feel like cable TV, while AI-powered communities become more like YouTube — open, social, and user-driven.
This approach also applies to content: imagine a platform where authors share key ideas instead of full books, and AI generates personalized texts tailored to each reader. In effect, every reader gets a custom “book” based on the author’s unique vision — something impossible without AI.
Platforms like And Then already do this with interactive quests: AI adapts stories for each player, so the same game can feel different every time.
The lesson? AI is not just a tool for efficiency — it enables entirely new forms of creation. Today, the challenge is to imagine what could be built next with AI. Before someone else does it.
Company Info
Fifth Door
Website: fifthdoor.com
Latest Round: $20M 26.11.2025
Total Funding: $20M across 1 round