Does a NON AI start-up have any chance in PH?

of course! AI is trendy, but solving people's real problems is still what matters :)

I definitely think so. Connecting your brand-building too much to AI is also risk if the hype cools off, as your product may very well cool off with it. We use AI in our business, but focus very little on it in marketing as its not the core of what we do.

Build something people want, whether incorporating AI or not. Focus should be on what people want vs what you're providing.

Right now we're in a AI rat race, engineers are being told to integrate AI regradless of the actual use case. At the end what matters and what sustains is if your product is solving and a problem and it's solving it really well.