One of the most impressive companies in my batch (W24) had nothing to do with AI, or indeed software: https://www.astromecha.co/ https://www.astromecha.co/ So

One of the most impressive companies in my batch (W24) had nothing to do with AI, or indeed software: https://www.astromecha.co/ https://www.astromecha.co/ So no, not a requirement. OTOH if you do come with an AI idea, they won't reject you just because they already accepted a few hundred others :)