Understudy Labs
YC S26Self-optimizing neocloud that cuts LLM bills by 80%
About
Understudy is an inference cloud. We capture your AI work traces, train smaller models, and automatically deploy them (only when they outperform the expensive model you are currently paying for). Instead of renting the same frontier model forever, your AI infrastructure gets faster, smarter, and cheaper every time it runs. Suppose your product uses Claude for a repetitive legal workflow. Understudy observes successful production runs, learns the specific tools and judgment required for that workflow, and trains a specialized open-weight model. Once that model matches or beats Claude on a held-out evaluation, Understudy starts routing production traffic to it. As more work is completed, the model keeps improving. We started Understudy because we believe every company using AI should be accumulating intelligence, not accumulating API bills.
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