How Artificial Intelligence Shapes Early-Stage Start-up Activities

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping entrepreneurial work and is becoming part of how early-stage start-ups develop and move toward market entry. This study adopts an activity-based perspective to examine how AI influences key early-stage start-up activities and how this influence is shaped by founders’ IT human capital and human judgement. Using a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with founders of six early-stage start-ups and analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. The findings show that AI becomes embedded in early-stage start-ups by supporting rather than replacing entrepreneurial activities, particularly by accelerating information processing, experimentation and learning. The extent and nature of AI use vary across start-ups and depend strongly on founders’ IT human capital. Across cases, entrepreneurial judgement remains central for evaluating AI outputs and guiding decision-making.