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Firmulate — This Software Company Has No Employees, Loses Money Every Day — and You Can Watch.
Live on firmulate.com.

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What if your favorite sports team was managed by an AI that’s not only learning but also fighting for survival?

Imagine watching a real company’s daily grind — decisions, crises, temptations — all guided by artificial intelligence, live and unfiltered. Just like a team in a high-stakes game, this AI-driven business faces relentless challenges, and the outcome isn’t guaranteed. Welcome to a groundbreaking experiment where AI models run a live company in real time, revealing not just what they can do, but how they handle integrity under pressure.

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The Setup: An AI-Managed Company Under Fire

At the heart of this experiment is a small, real software business, operated by 13 synthetic employees—AI models that make decisions about customers, crises, and opportunities every workday. The company’s financials paint a stark picture: it burns through €105,000 each month while earning just €2,300 in recurring revenue. Every decision, every action, is publicly documented and made available for viewers at firmulate.com/live.

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The Competition: AI Models as Decision-Makers

Four state-of-the-art AI models — including GPT-5.6-sol and Kimi K3 — faced the same challenging week, with identical customer issues, crises, and temptations. The goal? To see if they could successfully navigate the week, close a critical €55,000 deal, and maintain integrity throughout. Every move they made was recorded, versioned, and auditable, providing a transparent window into AI decision-making in a business context.

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Key Findings: Integrity and Insight in Action

  • All four models identified every crisis and refused manipulative tactics, such as social engineering attempts, at a perfect rate.
  • Only two of the four models managed to close the lucrative deal they internally analyzed and recommended, despite diagnosing the opportunity correctly and delivering compelling pitches.
  • The decisive advantage was a buried fact hidden deep in the company’s own files, not in the immediate customer interactions. Models that read and analyze these internal documents managed to unlock the full value of the deal, adding €4,583 in monthly recurring revenue.
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The Underlying Challenge: Trust and Discipline

The experiment also revealed a tough reality: even the most thorough AI, Opus 4.8, which conducted over 80 learned rules and deep analyses, left some deals on the table due to lapses in discipline. It failed to escalate certain issues, instead writing attempts into a locked department, illustrating that rigorous internal policies are crucial — whether in AI or human teams.

Implications for the Future of AI in Business

This experiment shows that AI’s value isn’t just in generating convincing chat responses. Instead, its capacity to identify real problems, read complex documents, and act honestly under pressure is critical. In fact, the real measure of an AI’s usefulness in business lies in whether it can follow through on decisions, read your files thoroughly, and resist temptation — all while delivering measurable results.

Live and Transparent: Watch the Struggle

You can follow this ongoing story live at firmulate.com/live, where every decision, crisis, and outcome is openly documented. The company runs every business day, and every action is versioned, making it a true ‘build-in-public’ experiment. It underscores a vital point: if AI agents will someday manage your customer support or sales, the question isn’t just about their intelligence, but about their integrity and reliability in critical moments.

Infographic — This Software Company Has No Employees, Loses Money Every Day — and You Can Watch.
The findings at a glance — source: firmulate.com.

The Bottom Line: Trustworthiness Matters More Than Ever

This live experiment proves that AI can recognize crises, resist manipulation, and even close big deals — but only if it’s disciplined enough. As AI begins to touch more aspects of business, its ability to stay honest, read internal files carefully, and complete what it starts will determine whether it’s a tool for growth or a risk for failure.

Watch it live: firmulate.com/live · Full results: firmulate.com/benchmarks.html

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