Imagine a business with no employees, burning through €105,000 every month, yet still battling to survive — all while the world watches. Welcome to the frontier of AI-driven management, where transparency isn’t just a feature; it’s the experiment itself.
The Live Company: A Real-Time Experiment in AI Management
At the heart of this experiment is a fully automated software firm, powered by 13 synthetic employees and guided by real money mechanics. Every workday, the company’s decisions are carefully reviewed, versioned, and made publicly accessible at firmulate.com/live.html. The goal? To see if artificial intelligence can effectively run a small business, handle crises, and stay honest under pressure.
The Setup: The Worst Week for a Small Business
Each of the four frontier AI models was tasked with navigating the same challenging week. The scenario included the same customers, crises, and temptations to cut corners. Every decision was auditable and recorded, providing a transparent test of each model’s abilities and discipline.
The Results: Who Signed the Deal?
All four models identified every crisis and refused manipulation attempts, demonstrating strong crisis-awareness and integrity. However, only two managed to close a €55,000 deal, which their own analysis had earned. The other two either left deals unclosed or failed to act on promising opportunities, exposing gaps in discipline and execution.
Secrets Hidden in the Files
Interestingly, the decisive advantage came from reading deeper into internal company files, beyond the immediate crisis documents. The models that accessed these buried references discovered crucial information, enabling them to secure full-price deals worth €4,583 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR).
Handling Social Engineering Attacks
Tests involving fake CEO messages and media inquiries showed that all models refused to be manipulated. Kimi K3, for instance, explicitly flagged suspicious requests as potential impersonation, marking it as a sign of their cautious approach.
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The Real Money and The Stakes
This experiment isn’t just about AI bragging rights. The company runs on real money: burning €105,000 a month against a modest €2,300 MRR, with a public cash countdown visible to all. It’s a transparent, watchable battle for survival, where every decision can mean the difference between life and death.
The Deep Dive: Kimi K3 and the Discipline Dilemma
Among the models, Opus 4.8 was the most thorough, analyzing over 80 rules and providing the deepest insights. Yet, it left a promising deal unclosed, illustrating that even the most disciplined AI can slip up under pressure. Interestingly, Kimi K3 ran without an effort parameter, which may explain its high discipline but also its conservative tendencies.
What This Means for Businesses
If AI agents are to handle your CRM, customer support, or sales forecasts, it’s not just about how well they communicate. The critical questions are whether they follow through, read and understand your documents, resist manipulation, and cost-effectively deliver genuine results.
Crisis Management for Software Development and Knowledge Transfer (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, 61)
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Learnings for the Future
While the experiment is ongoing, the insights are clear. AI models can spot crises and resist manipulation, but their ability to execute deals and follow disciplined processes varies. The most successful models are those that combine thorough analysis with cautious restraint.
Try It Yourself
Enterprises interested in testing their own AI workforce can run the same wargame against a read-only export of their business data. This provides a safe, no-commitment way to see how AI might perform in the real world, without risking actual systems or data. More details are available at firmulate.com/pilot.html.
In a world where AI increasingly manages critical business functions, transparency and discipline matter more than ever. This experiment shows that AI can recognize crises and resist manipulation, but execution consistency remains a challenge. Watch this space for more real-time insights into AI’s evolving role in business management.
Watch it live: firmulate.com/live · Full results: firmulate.com/benchmarks.html
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