For years now, startup investors have been busily writing checks to founders applying artificial intelligence in creative new ways to their respective industries.

That momentum continued in 2022, with investors signing on to back some rather quirky applications of AI technology. 

How quirky? I assembled a list of some of the more unusual-seeming models. If they pan out, expect a future where AI-enabled tech can customize your wig, cut your meat, sort your trash and track lice on your fish farm. (If you have a fish farm, that is.)

Without further ado, here are six recently funded or launched AI endeavors applying technology in surprising ways:

Customize your wig: New York startup Parfait has seen the AI future, and it’s all about making wigs. The company raised $5 million in April, with tennis star Serena Williams listed as a backer. Parfait uses artificial intelligence to capture a client’s exact measurements and skin tone when crafting its wigs. The company’s goal is to speed up the process and significantly cut costs for producing high-quality custom wigs, which usually cost upward of $2,000 and take months to make.

Upgrade your skincare: Estonian startup Haut.AI is applying artificial intelligence technology to the pressing task of figuring out which skincare products work best. The company, which counts Microsoft For Startups and Nvidia Inception Program among its partners, operates an AI engine trained on millions of face and skin images to match users to appropriate products based on over 14 skin health and beauty metrics.

Give you a good night’s sleep: Bryte makes high-tech mattresses optimized for restorative rest by tracking sleep duration, stages and efficiency. In July, the Silicon Valley company pulled in $20 million in a round led by mattressmaker Tempur Sealy.

Be your friend: Replika, an app that makes digital avatars that interact with people in the role of friend and confidant, has drawn over 10 million users in its few short years of existence. As users chat with the avatar, the AI learns more about them and improves its ability to provide personalized responses. VC-funded mental health app Woebot, which is also AI-powered, functions more as a mental health tool — it “listens,” asks questions and makes recommendations. Both startups join several other AI tools that purport to offer the kind of emotional support and interpersonal interaction one usually expects from a human. 

Warn about a flood: In recent quarters, we’ve been seeing a good bit of venture investment directed at weather-related startups. Now, one AI-focused startup is promising better tools to predict one of the most worrisome of weather developments: flooding. Cloud to Street, calls its offering an AI- and satellite-powered technology that can track floods in near real time anywhere on Earth. To further this effort, the New York-based company pulled in $12 million in Series A funding in September.

Keep your fish healthy: If you’re a fish farmer, AI technology can help deliver healthier fish at lower cost. That’s the pitch from  Aquabyte, a 5-year-old Norwegian startup that raised $25 million in a July Series B round and counts SoftBank Ventures Asia as a backer. Aquabyte uses AI to scale adoption of tools that enable automatic lice counting, welfare scoring and biomass control, among other data-driven offerings.

Meanwhile, another aquaculture-focused AI startup, Norway’s Aquaticode, also scored funding this year, pulling in $6 million in an August Series A.

Here’s the post I’m writing on plane to Cali and now it’s the time to sleep!